



































































































































































































































































































ffe S PZ3- . 
Rook ,.C 9555 
Copyright N 0 KcL__ 

co pyz 

C'OFi'RlGHT DEPOSE 










VAN TASSEL AND BIG BILL 


















































“Hey, Toolan’s marchin’!” 




1 

VAN TASSEL AND 
BIG BILL 



BY : 

HENRY H. CURRAN 


j » 

o 5 a 

> 3 

> 3 > 

3 . > 


NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 

1923 






Copyright, 1922, 1923, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 


Printed in the United States of America 


Published, September, 1923 




SEP 17 ’23 i 

©C1A752940 W\J^' 




CONTENTS 


• PAGE 

“Hey, Toolan’s Marchin’ !”. 3 

The Chanty That Settled It.28 

Callahan of Carmine Street.55 

Garry’s Christmas .84 

Thomas .in 

Big Bill Speaks His Mind.138 

Flanagan’s Getaway.161 

The Stolen Band.195 

The Imperturbability of Pick.222 

“Cassidy—I s That the Name ?” 245 

“Uffs”. 259 

“Heads Up!”.285 


L 

















ILLUSTRATIONS 


“Hey, Toolan’s marchm’!”. Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 


Jimmy was introduced as “Our Next Alderman !” . . 68 

“Gee, is dis you, Sally ?”.242 

“Yes, and I’ll knock you down again if you don’t be¬ 
have !”.306 














VAN TASSEL AND BIG BILL 



“HEY, TOOLAN’S MARCHIN’!” 


HE Van Tassels of Park Avenue and the 



Toolans of First Avenue were two old New 


York families that had seen very little of each 
other in recent years. In fact, they could hardly 
be said to have met at all, since that day away 
back in the nineties when the elder Van Tassel 
had taken the wrong train home on the ele¬ 
vated. That had been a bad day in “The Street,” 
such as often came in those years, and Van Tassel 
had left his bankers and boarded the train at 
Hanover Square, completely lost in his anxieties. 
When the smoky little engine went puffing off to 
the right at Chatham Square, and led its clatter¬ 
ing cars up Second Avenue, instead of Third, Van 
Tassel still took no notice. At Thirty-fourth 
Street he got off, according to habit, walked north 
two blocks, and then most unaccountably turned 
to the east. It was not until he was brought up 
with a sharp jerk, by an insurmountable barrier, 
that he realized what had happened. 

“Look out, mister—yer might hurt yerself.” 
The dumpy little man with the red hair was lean- 


3 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

ing against a table on the sidewalk, on top of 
which rested a pile of chairs. 

“My conscience!” exclaimed Van Tassel. Back 
of the table was a bed, turned on end and sup¬ 
ported by a dilapidated bureau. A mattress, a 
bird-cage whose occupant had long since departed, 
a picture of a bunch of purple grapes, and a mis¬ 
cellaneous mess of clothes and cheap bric-a-brac 
helped make up the household pile that covered 
most of the sidewalk. A woman and three chil¬ 
dren sat dejectedly among the debris. It was 
beginning to rain. 

“Good heavens!” again exclaimed Van Tassel, 
as he took in the family picture. “What are 
you doing out here? Don’t you see it’s raining?” 

“No place to go,” responded the red head, in 
a tone of gloomy finality. 

“Why don’t you go inside?” 

“Dispossessed.” 

Van Tassel was stumped. He knew that if 
people did not pay their rent they were dispos¬ 
sessed—in fact, that it happened all the time. 
But he was not in the real-estate business, thank 
Heaven, and he did not have to wrestle with this 
form of misfortune. It was bad enough when a 
dividend was passed, but then it just stopped, and 
there were no harassing post-mortems. He had 
often wondered what a family did when they were 


4 


“Hey, Toolan’s Marchm’!” 

dispossessed; it was a hard thing to imagine from 
the point of view of the old house on Murray 
Hill where he had lived since he was a boy. 

“What are you going to do?” he asked. 

“Dunno.” 

“But, good Lord, man, you’ve got to do some¬ 
thing—don’t you see it’s raining?” He bethought 
himself of the universal panacea. He had felt 
very poor when the bears had gotten through with 
his securities an hour or two ago, but this looked 
really worse. 

“Have you got any money?” 

The man laughed uneasily. “Why would I 
be here?” 

The children began to giggle sympathetically 
at this unusual sound from their father, but the 
woman looked up suspiciously. Van Tassel be¬ 
came impatient. 

“Oh, I say, come on, now, we’ve got to do 
something about it—what’s your name?” 

“Toolan. Matthew Toolan.” 

“Where do you live?” 

“That’s where we used to live.” He jerked 
his head toward the tenement that towered over 
them. “Fifth floor. Rear, west.” 

“How much will it take to get back there?” 

“Eighteen bucks.” 

“And what then?” 


5 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

Van Tassel continued his questioning in much 
the same way that he cross-examined his bankers 
when they offered him new securities, but there 
was a kindly banter in his voice that drew answers 
from the red head and eventually disarmed even 
the suspicions of the red head’s wife. The result 
of the inquisition was the rehabilitation of the 
Toolan family, bird-cage and all, with enough 
cash besides to stock up a larder that had 
dwindled to nothing. 

That the beneficiaries of this turn of fortune 
were doubtful of its reality goes without saying. 
It was not until the enfolding walls of Fifth Rear 
West had actually closed about them again that 
the Toolan incredulity was finally dissolved. But 
the sidewalks of New York breed strange adven¬ 
tures, and there is a fatalism attending the ups 
and downs of the poor that is sufficient unto all 
things. 

Van Tassel took it less calmly. When he had 
left behind the last of the landlords, tenants, city 
marshals, and dubious neighbors who had crowded 
his horizon for an hour and a half, he turned 
toward home with a feeling of sudden weariness. 
It had been a very distressing experience. Such 
things ought not to be allowed—in any event 
they should not be shoved right under one’s nose. 
He fell to wondering what would have happened 


6 


“Hey, Toolan’s Marchin’!” 

if he had not been led into the very vortex of the 
Toolan crisis; or if he had turned away from it 
without further ado. Why had he stopped and 
joined hands with it at all? It was no responsi¬ 
bility of his. The more he thought about it the 
more amazed he became. When he told his wife 
about it at dinner he did so with a feeling that 
perhaps he was recounting a dream, after all. 
He felt sure of at least a quip or two about his 
absent-mindedness, for that was an established 
topic of connubial raillery. Instead of that, Mrs. 
Van Tassel listened quietly, and then asked the 
address of Mr. and Mrs. Matthew Toolan. She 
said nothing to her husband until the next eve¬ 
ning, but in the meantime there had been an unex¬ 
pected visit to the Toolan apartments, and the 
small Toolans had acquired some unbelievably 
new breeches and dresses, while a doctor had 
even been to see Mrs. Toolan about that throat. 

Then Van Tassel went his wife one better and 
got Toolan a job. He was all the way in now, 
and anything was permissible. But he was more 
amazed than ever. 

Ever since that rainy day Park Avenue had 
taken a kindly glance at First Avenue from year 
to year, with a special look at Christmas time. 
But that was long ago, and one by one the elders 
had gone, all but Mrs. Van Tassel. In both 


7 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

homes the chicks had grown up and had begun’ 
leave the coop to fly for themselves. Matty Too- 
lan, Junior, had even become prosperous in his 
way, for he was now the undisputed proprietor of 
Toolan’s Rest, where the First Avenue wayfarer 
could slake his thirst over a real bar, from a real 
schooner, of deep-sea size. In the house on Mur¬ 
ray Hill, Mrs. Van Tassel kept pretty much to 
her chair in these days, but, with a mind as good 
as ever, she took a lively interest in the doings of 
Jimmy, her youngest son, who was still far from 
finding himself. Tall, and brown of hair and 
eyes, Jimmy had so accurately inherited the erect 
carriage and finely chiselled features of his 
father, that the likeness was startling. He lived 
in the old house with his mother, and was equally 
well acquainted with his club on Fifth Avenue. 
Theatres and restaurants were not unknown to 
him. All of which, taken with certain graces of 
fortune and a cheery straightforwardness of 
character, had provided Mr. James Van Tassel 
with a satisfactory world of friends and frolic 
that kept him steadily occupied in the doing of 
nothing at all. This was not for lack of sug¬ 
gestion from a remembered father, who had 
been a good sport himself in his day. 

“My boy, I hope you will go in for govern¬ 
ment,” the elder Van Tassel had said to him a 


8 


“Hey, Toolan’s Marchm’!” 

few days before his death. “You will have ample 
means, and you can go into banking if you want 
to, and lose a good deal without getting hurt. 
More likely you’ll increase what you have. But 
we’re living in a different day from those I grew 
up in, and now we need our best men in govern¬ 
ment, not in business. We’ve done it all, in busi¬ 
ness. Why, look at our country—leading the 
whole world. But not in government. And we 
won’t be safe until our young men, who can lead, 
go into government, and come to lead there too. 
We must have leadership, the kind that carries 
intelligence and vision, that can be trusted by 
every one, rich or poor, ignorant or intelligent—• 
but we won’t get it until the best men go in for 
it, by choice. If they don’t go in pretty soon, 
they’ll be forced in by the calamities that come 
from the wrong kind of leadership, that we see 
all around us every day. There’s your chance, 
my boy, and your duty. I don’t know how to tell 
you to go about it—I never knew much about 
politics—but I know we’re mighty hard up for a 
few real leaders. Think it over.” 

That was in January. Jimmy had thought it 
over, with excellent intentions, ever since. It 
had been hard to begin; he did not know where 
to go. Now it was April, and he was thinking 
it over again as he sat in his club window on 


9 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

Fifth Avenue. But in a very different mood. 
For at last he was under way. As the newly 
chosen chairman of the Society for the Promo¬ 
tion of Proportional Representation, he had just 
come from an examination of the poster, on the 
door of the United Civics Building, that adver¬ 
tised the mass-meeting which his society pro¬ 
posed to hold that very evening. “Mighty well 
done,” he murmured in praise of the printer, 
as he recalled the line in red letters that read: 
“Chairman Mr. James Van Tassel.” 

“Well, well—what’s well done?” inquired 
Andy Nichols, as he sank lazily into the cushioned 
chair opposite. 

“Oh, just a piece of printing I’ve been looking 
at—I didn’t know I was talking to myself.” 

“Something about that new-fangled society of 
yours, I suppose,” ventured Andy. 

“Yes, it was, to tell you the truth,” laughed 
Van Tassel. “Announcement of a meeting.” 

“Thought so. Going to make a speech?” 

“No, just preside.” 

“Well, I suppose you’ll tell me I ought to go. 
You certainly have got the political fever. But 
I don’t see where you get with it all.” 

“I don’t know where I do get, Andy, but an 
old friend of father’s asked me to take hold of 
this, and I believe in it. You know, if we don’t 


10 


“Hey, Toolan’s Marchin’!” 

have proper minority representation, in the real 
ratio of strength, we-” 

“Oh, dear,” Andy yawned. “Jimmy, let me 
off, will you? You’ve told me that already, you 
know.” He laughed good-naturedly. “Why 
don’t you give a thousand families a scuttle of 
coal apiece the next time a cold snap comes? 
They might elect you alderman—they’d see that 
you got minority representation, when the votes 
were counted, anyhow.” 

Van Tassel looked distressed. 

“Oh, well, I was only joking,” continued Andy, 
hastily. “That was what the elevator man said at 
the office to-day, when I asked him about your 
going into politics. He says one good turn 
deserves another; said he’d never heard of your 
proportional business.” 

They drifted into other talk. 

In front of the United Civics Building a short, 
thick-set man with red hair was studying a poster 
on the bulletin-board. “It must be the boy,” he 
said. “Same name, but—” The red head bent 
closer, then recoiled from the succession of long 
words. “But what kind of a thing is that?” mut¬ 
tered the proprietor of Toolan’s Rest, as he 
walked thoughtfully toward First Avenue. 

There was little to lead the casual passer-by 
toward the Toolan emporium on First Avenue. 


11 



Van Tassel and Big Bill 

The street is broad and bleak there. A stone’s 
throw to the east the river frets to and fro with 
the tide, and the stretch between the two is a 
dreary waste of lumber-yards and coal-pockets. 
Here and there a brick factory shoulders into 
the wind that sweeps across this no man’s land. 
An occasional truck rumbles by. It is not a place 
that people come to by choice. Toolan’s Rest 
called its guests with a lure of its own. There 
was something about the little frame building, 
with its huddled gables crowded between the 
swaying piles of lumber-yard planks, that sug¬ 
gested an inn rather than a saloon. The faded 
green clapboards looked old and comfortable. 
There were white curtains in the windows up¬ 
stairs, and the front was free of the conventional 
waistband of gilded brewery advertising. Even 
the door was different. It opened inward with a 
knob, and did not swing. 

As Toolan entered and carefully closed the door 
behind him, he glanced at the bar and then at the 
round tables that lined the opposite wall. They 
were old tables, clamped to the wooden floor, and 
there were only three of them. A gas-light hung 
from the low ceiling and threw its faint glow on 
the faded pictures of stationary race-horses that 
looked down from the walls. A portrayal of the 
epic encounter of Messrs. Heenan and Sayres cast 


12 


“Hey, Toolan’s Marchm!” 

a fistic benediction over the bar. There were no 
mirrors, no mosaic underfoot; and there was no 
cash-register. The barkeep was silent and observ¬ 
ant, a graven image of black pompadour, red 
cheeks, and white jacket. The free lunch engen¬ 
dered thoughts of the stone age. Disposing of 
the two or three “Hello, Matty’s,” that came 
from the tables, with a nod of the head, Toolan 
pushed his hat back and picked up the telephone- 
receiver that flanked the far end of the bar. 

“Beekman two three hundred. That’s right. 
Commissioner’s office. Yeah. Baker there? 
Yeah. This you, Bill? This is Matty. Yeah. 
Can yer come up? Right now. All right.” 

He cast an appraising eye over the tables. 
“Slim!” 

That individual detached his spindle-like form 
from its affectionate hold on a half-consumed 
schooner of beer, and reported for duty. 

“I wantcha ter look up an’ down the street a 
little. See Finnerty and Hogan—an’ pick up 
Fred’s gang over on Second Avenue. Tell ’im 
I may want some marchin’ to-night—ter be ready 
if I send out the call. Then come back. I’ve 
got another job for yer.” 

Slim’s eyes brightened. When Toolan marched 
it meant free beer all around for the marchers, 
to the extent of three or even four kegs. When 


13 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

he marched to a political rally the Toolan clan’s 
numbers and enthusiasm insured the success of 
the rally, and success was well worth the price of 
a few kegs to those who managed the affair. 
There was no mystery about the transaction. 
Enthusiasm is the one essential of an effective 
political meeting, and the noisier it is the better. 
Sometimes it is deplorably absent, and then the 
district is blighted by the “frost” that undoes the 
work of a dozen successful gatherings. Better 
no meetings at all than one frost! So runs the 
rule. Toolan provided insurance against frost in 
the shape of a hundred noisy attendants at any 
neaf-by meeting. The premium, paid in terms of 
Toolan’s beer, was dispensed to the attendants 
by Toolan himself—when they had earned it, 
and not before. At the call of the clan they would 
cheerfully march to the field of oratorical battle, 
and carry off the victory with the strength of their 
thirsty enthusiasm. • Then they would withdraw 
in good order to the security of Toolan’s Rest, 
and receive their just reward. Could any upris¬ 
ing of the populace be more natural or delightful? 
Here was a game, so contrived by the joyful wit 
of Toolan that everybody was sure to win. It 
was not difficult to spread the news, when Too¬ 
lan marched—the populace rose! 


14 


“Hey, Toolan’s Marchin’!” 

• Slim carefully unloaded his schooner of the 
rest of her cargo, and went out the door. 

Presently a tall figure, with grizzled hair and 
gray eyes under a slouch hat, bent as it opened 
the door and betook itself to where Toolan pre¬ 
sided, at the far end of the bar. ' 

“What’s up, Matty?” 

“I gotta find out sump’n quick. There’s a 
meetin’ to-night in that buildin’ on Thirty-eighth 
Street—Civics, or sump’n like that—you know— 
near Lexington. Yes, I know—it’s a dead one— 
never got a crowd there yet—an’ it’s a small place, 
at that. But that ain’t the point. What I 
wantcha ter do is take a look at the dodger that’s 
on the front o’ the buildin’ an’ pick up this name 
—James—Van—Tassel—in red letters. Yer 
can’t miss it. Then find out if he lives in a big 
house at Park Avenue an’ Thirty-seventh Street— 
I forget the number. An’ tell me if it’s the same 
one. That’s all. An’ come back an’ lemme know 
soon, see? An’ look out for that name, Bill—be 
sure yer got it right.” 

“A’right, Matty.” 

Big Bill was accustomed to strange errands 
for Toolan, and, while he could make nothing of 
this one, he was content to go on his way unen¬ 
lightened. As a messenger in the employ of the 
government of a great city, he had learned to 


15 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

figure out his whys and wherefores en route 
instead of at the start, and his uptown discipline 
was as good as the downtown brand. Bill turned 
in his report on this mission, on time and to the 
letter, according to standard. 

In the auditorium of the United Civics Build¬ 
ing a select audience had assembled to hear the 
address of Professor Pecan, of Olympia College, 
on the subject of “Proportional Representation; 
Its Genesis and Its Necessity.” There were 
several lecturers on political science, a generous 
sprinkling of women, and a considerable number 
of students with note-books. In addition there 
were various Van Tassel relations, and a few of 
Jimmy’s friends from the club, who had prepared 
to sacrifice a perfectly good evening on the altar 
of loyalty to Jimmy. In one corner a reporter 
from a school of journalism was ready, with pencil 
poised, to get it all; and toward the rear of the 
room a group of hungry-looking young men, with 
long hair and keen faces, had taken up a position 
on the aisle. A tall, lean form was slouched 
in a seat near them, alone. But there was row 
on row of empty seats, and the room had a cold 
look that made Van Tassel shiver inwardly as he 
looked out over it from the platform. He smiled 
weakly at Nichols, who was sitting at the end of 
the second row, then motioned to him to come up. 


16 


a Hey, Toolan’s Marchin’!” 

“Guess I might as well go ahead, Andy; will 
you take a look outside and see if any more are 
coming?” 

“Just looked, Jimmy; it’s as empty as mid¬ 
night.” Nichols hesitated. “You’ll never get 
them out for this sort of thing, Jimmy,” he added. 
“It isn’t real. I don’t want to throw cold water 
around, but why don’t you join a political club in 
your district, or something like that? This is no 
good.” 

“Well, you may be right, but I’m going to see 
it through,” said Van Tassel, and he thumped 
with his gavel and unwound the introductory 
remarks that he had prepared with such care. 

“And now, ladies and gentlemen,” he concluded, 
“it gives me great pleasure to introduce Professor 
Pecan, of Olympia College, who has made a life 
study of the subject that brings us here to-night— 
Professor Pecan.” 

As the professor arose, adjusted his glasses, 
and drew his manuscript from his pocket to the 
accompaniment of a mild round of polite hand¬ 
clapping, Van Tassel noticed that the thin man 
who sat alone rose unobtrusively and left the 
room. “Good Lord, they’re going already,” he 
thought. He did not know that the telephone in 
Toolan’s Rest was at that moment jingling ener¬ 
getically at the call of the departed one. 


17 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

“That right, Slim? As bad as that? Yer 
don’t say so. Well, come over, quick.” 

Matty hung up the receiver, turned toward the 
well-filled barroom, and called for silence. 

“We’re goin’ ter march, boys,” he announced. 
There was a pleased shuffle about the tables, and 
three feet slipped off the rail at the foot of the 
bar. A small man who was pecking furtively 
with a fork among the free-lunch items stopped 
suddenly, then carefully resumed. 

“Come, lay off that lunch fer a minute, Smoke 
—I wantcha ter listen to me.” 

Toolan gave his orders, despatched his mes¬ 
sengers, and threw out a parting injunction: “In 
ten minutes, now—we gotta be quick—getta move 
on yer!” He turned to Big Bill, who was stand¬ 
ing by in somewhat the position of an adjutant. 

“Bill, we better have the busbies,” he said, 
“an’ the red fire! Get ’em up from down-stairs, 
will yer? We might pick up a few scouts on the 
way. Then drop in at the station-house an’ tip 
off the lieutenant. Better see the man on post, 
too. We ain’t got no permit for a parade, an’ 
he might be one o’ them new rookies they just 
put in. I’ll meet yer at the door. Yeah, at the 
buildin’. Whose meetin’ is it? Oh, never mind 
about that. An’ don’t talk to nobody at the hall, 
see? Don’t put ’em wise. Oh, I’ll look out fer 


18 


u Hey, Toolan’s Marchm’!” 

the kegs—leave it ter me, Bill—I know what I’m 
doin’. Now, get busy, will yer, an’ don’t ask 
me no more questions!” 

A few minutes later thirty or forty men, of all 
sizes, shapes, and descriptions, were marching 
west from Toolan’s Rest. They formed some 
sort of column, and were led by Toolan himself, 
as a mute guaranty to recruits that the usual re¬ 
ward was impending. Behind Toolan marched 
the elect who wore the busbies, a dozen or more 
who looked very fierce indeed as the great bear¬ 
skin helmets bobbed along above the heads of the 
rest. Down the column an occasional stick of 
red fire sputtered its fitful glow about the march¬ 
ers, and in the rear and on the flanks a multitude 
of excited children scampered and leaped, and 
begged for red fire as they ran. As the word 
went around and the recruits fell in, the column 
gradually lengthened. When Fred’s gang fell 
in at Second Avenue, thirty strong, it began to 
look like a parade. 

“Hey, Toolan’s marchin’!” cried an excited 
youngster, as he estimated the situation from the 
curb, and then ran headlong to spread the news 
in his own bailiwick. 

“Toolan’s marchin’!” came the echo, from half 
the small boys in the block. 

Overhead the women of the window-sill watch 


19 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

exchanged knowing comments from one window 
to another. 

“It’s Toolan, all right,” said Mrs. McGinnis, 
as she shifted her arms on the sill and thrust her 
head slightly forward. 

“Sure, it’s Toolan,” corroborated Mrs. Mc- 
Gann, from the east. “I can see the busbies.” 

“An’ where are they goin’ now, I wonder? 
This ain’t campaign time.” 

“Fred Garland is with ’em. It must be a big 
one.” 

“An’ I see Hogan. The ol’ man’ll be late 
to-night.” 

As the red fire and the marchers departed 
toward the west the chatter of the window-sills 
went with them along the walls of the tall tene¬ 
ments that flank the narrow street below like 
the sides of a canyon. When the column reached 
the United Civics Building, there were nearly a 
hundred men in line. Toolan stopped them a 
few yards away. 

“All right, Bill?” 

“O K,” replied the big man. 

“All right—in yer go!” shouted Toolan to the 
column. “Now, remember what I told yer—go 
in quiet like, a few at a time—an’ don’t talk or go 
ter sleep—this ain’t no political meetin’—it’s a 
bunch o’ highbrows we’re up against! Give’m a 


20 


“Hey, Toolan’s Marchm’!” 

clap once in a while—quiet like. Keep yer eye on 
Big Bill. He’ll be on the aisle, an’ yer’ll get the 
tip from him. An’ do what he tells yer, or there 
won’t be nuthin’ doin’ later on—I’ll be there 
watchin’—go ahead, now! Oh, an’ come out the 
same way yer go in,” he added, “when it’s over— 
not before! We ain’t goin’ ter march home.” 

They started in, in threes and fours. 

“Here, gimme them busbies!” exclaimed Too- 
lan suddenly as the bearskin marchers passed 
him. “That’d never do,” he muttered, as he 
gathered them up, and handed them over to two 
of the marchers to carry back. “An’ douse them 
red lights back there!” he commanded. Then he 
followed the rest in, and slipped into a seat near 
the door, where he could see everything that went 
on. 

Professor Pecan was well into his subject when 
the marchers began to file in, and he looked up 
once with annoyance as the threes and fours con¬ 
tinued to shuffle into the empty seats. It mattered 
little to him whether the audience was small or 
large; the idea was the thing. But to Van Tassel 
it mattered a great deal. He looked pleased 
when the first few drifted in, then surprised as 
they kept coming; and, finally, when the room was 
nearly filled, he felt the glow of the success that 
follows failure, and he looked triumphantly at 


21 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

Nichols. That friend at all costs, who had sev¬ 
eral times looked over his shoulder with growing 
curiosity and was still puzzled by this outpouring 
of the people, returned a congratulatory look 
that said, as plain as words: “I don’t know what 
it is, Jimmy, but you’re going strong.” 

As the professor glanced up over his glasses a 
few minutes later, he said, with an air of satisfied 
accomplishment: “And that brings the history of 
our movement down through the year nineteen 
hundred and five.” The students made careful 
note of this in their note-books, and the Van 
Tassel relations preserved a family fortitude that 
proved what dead game sports they were. 
Jimmy’s friends bore up well. Then, down the 
aisle, some feet away, a big man suddenly clapped 
his hands with enthusiasm, and in a moment, as 
the marchers recognized the heroism of the pro¬ 
fessor’s statement, a storm of handclapping swept 
over the rear half of the room. The professor 
looked startled, and a few in the front rows 
turned around in alarm, but the big man suddenly 
stopped clapping, and the applause was followed 
by a thick silence. Somewhere in the rear of the 
room a husky voice affirmed audibly: “Toolan’s 
all right.” 

“Shut up!” hissed Big Bill in a hoarse whisper. 


22 


“Hey, Toolan’s Marchin’!” 

“Hey, Smoke, cut that out!” he added severely, 
as he recognized the well-meaning offender. 

There were two or three other bursts of 
applause, and each time they came as the profes¬ 
sor came to a halt at the end of a long paragraph. 

“Wot’s it all about?” Van Tassel heard a voice 
saying, as one of the gusts died away. But that 
was to be expected, and it was a good thing that 
the professor was there to explain. 

Things became more serious when one of the 
long-haired young men, who had been in the room 
from the beginning, stood up in the middle of a 
sentence from the professor and pointed a long, 
thin finger at him. 

“How can you claim any worth for your plan,” 
he called in a shrill voice, “when on every hand 
we see stolen wealth parading-” 

“Aw, siddown,” came a voice from behind. 

In front, heads were turning around. Van 
Tassel reached nervously forward and grasped his 
gavel. But the professor was in his element. 
He stopped and removed his glasses. 

“Let him go on,” he cried. “I welcome ques¬ 
tions. Let us discuss the matter.” 

The discussion never took place. Big Bill was 
leaning toward the interrupter. 

“Siddown, yer big bum,” he said quietly, with 
a look that meant business. The young man 


23 



Van Tassel and Big Bill 

paused as he half turned and caught Bill’s eye. 
“Siddown, I tell yer—’fore I knock yer block off 
—d’yer hear me?” Bill’s fist came into view. 
“Yer rotten egg,” he added. The young man sud¬ 
denly and silently sat down. “Now, keep yer 
mouth shut, or I’ll throw yer through that win¬ 
der,” put in Bill for good measure. There was 
no more heckling. 

When the meeting was over the students 
crowded up to the platform to ask questions of 
the professor, and the Van Tassels to congratu¬ 
late the chairman. “Perfectly fine. Splendid 
cause. You presided wonderfully. You just gave 
him one look, and he didn’t dare finish his ques¬ 
tion. Good work, Jimmy.” As the loyal Van 
Tassels came and went Jimmy felt more and more 
pleased with the success of the meeting. He felt 
particularly good when Nichols shook his hand 
warmly and said: “Well, Jimmy, I don’t know 
where your audience came from, but they’re the 
people, all right. There must be something in 
that proportional business of yours, although I 
can’t figure it out myself. Coming up to the 
club?” 

“Thanks, Andy—yes, I’ll be right with you.” 
And it was late when the celebration at the club 
broke up and they parted on the steps. Jimmy 
called for a taxi. “Andy, I don’t quite get it 


24 


“Hey, Toolan’s MarchinT* 

yet,” he repeated for the tenth time, as he stood 
with one foot on the running-board. “They all 
came in together; and they were different from 
the rest.” 

“Well, I give it up,” said Andy. “I spoke to 
one man, and he said something about Toolan’s 
on First Avenue somewhere. That’s all I could 
get.” 

“Toolan’s,” mused Jimmy. “That’s funny. 
Where have I heard that name? Guess I’ll look 
it up. Well, good night!” He sank into the 
leather seat of the taxi. “Park Avenue and 
Thirty-seventh Street,” he said. 

Over on First Avenue a different form of cele¬ 
bration was coming to its close. Toolan had left 
the meeting just before the end and hurried away 
to get things ready. “They’ll be over soon 
enough,” he said to himself. “No danger o’ their 
losin’ their way.” Then, as he rounded the First 
Avenue corner: “That’s the lad, all right—looks 
jus’ like his father looked twenty years ago.” 
Toolan chuckled as he put on his apron and got 
ready for business. 

“Come, gimme a hand with them kegs here,” 
he called to the strays at the tables. “Come on, 
now—lively—we got a big gang cornin’.” 

When the bar had been lined and relined with 
the thirst on legs that comes from marching, and 


25 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

the tables had groaned under their recurring 
burden, and Smoke had forked and fingered into 
his anatomy the last dripping pickle, the last 
crumb of old cracker, and the last cube of perma¬ 
nent cheese, Toolan leaned back against the 
counter that harbored the “hard stuff” and looked 
out over the bar. The fourth keg had come and 
gone, and Toolan’s Rest was a smoky haze of 
happy humanity and half-emptied schooners. 
Toolan’s face broke into a tired grin. Two or 
three had asked him how he had happened into 
that kind of a meeting, but he had stood them off 
with a laugh, and he chuckled at the recollection. 

“That wasn’t one o’ Donovan’s meetin’s,” Slim 
had ventured. 

“Well, who said it was?” Toolan had re¬ 
sponded. “G’wan now—don’t bother me.” 

“Matty’s all right,” declared the man next to 
Slim emphatically. 

“An’ the beer’s all right, ain’t it?” added Too¬ 
lan aggressively. 

“ ’S’all right, Matty,” acquiesced Slim. 

“Well-?” 

And that ended the inquiry. 

When they had all gone, on the stroke of one 
—for Toolan’s Rest closed on the minute—Big 
Bill left Toolan at the door. 

“Matty, yer know yer own business, and it 


26 



u Hey, Toolan’s Marchin’!” 

ain’t fer me ter be buttin’ in,” said Bill reflec¬ 
tively, “but if ever I see a queer one, it’s this here 
racket yer run off to-night, on yer own. An’ four 
kegs 1” 

Toolan grinned again. “Aw, lemme alone, 
Bill—I didn’t do no harm, did I?” 

“No harm—no.” Bill was puzzled. He looked 
at Toolan again. “An’ I never see yer feelin’ 
so good,” he said, “not since the little boy come.” 
He glanced toward the ceiling. “What’s it all 
about?” 

“Oh, nuthin’,” said Toolan, looking down. 
Then he looked up again quickly. “They say one 
good turn deserves another,” he said, as he 
looked straight at Big Bill. There was a queer 
brightness in Toolan’s eyes, and they were wink¬ 
ing very hard. But there was a broad smile on 
his face. And Bill left, more puzzled than ever. 




27 


THE CHANTY THAT 
SETTLED IT 


W HEN Matty Toolan, old New Yorker and 
red-headed proprietor of the river front 
saloon called Toolan’s Rest, made up his mind 
to do a thing, he usually did it up to the handle. 
When he discovered a guest of distinction within 
his walls, he was wont to resort to champagne. 
To-night he had uprooted from the cellar a bottle 
of his oldest and best. 

“An’ why not?” he had exclaimed to his wife, 
as he descended the dark stairs. “Sure, it’s the 
young feller himself—Jimmy Van Tassel, straight 
out o’ Murray Hill—an’ a chip o’ the old block!” 
He went excitedly about his quest. 

Toolan had never forgotten that rainy day 
twenty-odd years ago, when the elder Van Tassel 
had saved the whole Toolan family from dismal 
“dispossess.” He was a youngster then, and 
little Jimmy only a babe. But he remembered. 
And, now, to find the son of the family benefactor 
actually in Toolan’s Rest on First Avenue, after 
all these years—it was a rare, dusty bottle that 
Toolan fished out of the deeps! 


28 


The Chanty that Settled it 

“An’ so yer goin’ in for politics!” he exclaimed 
when the visit was over. “It’s a rough 
game, me boy, but there’s many a warm heart in 
it, an’ yer father—well, it’s like his boy to be 
doin’ it.” The little red-headed man seemed to 
be looking beyond the years, and there was a soft¬ 
ness in his brown eyes. “An’ it’s good yer came 
to me,” he added, more stoutly. “I’ll get yer 
started—right!” 

“Thank you—that’s what I need,” said Van 
Tassel. Tall and slender, in the twenties, and 
with a cheery frankness in his clean-cut features 
that made friends for the asking, the young man 
had received a ready approval in the stares that 
came from the rest of Toolan’s guests. He had 
looked with an eager interest of his own on the 
crew that lined Toolan’s bar and rimmed the 
round tables opposite. There was a dexterity of 
elbow in the rapid ups and downs of their tall 
schooners of beer that compelled admiration. 
“Tell me, who’s that little fellow in the corner?” 
he asked suddenly, turning to Toolan as he rose 
from the table. He motioned toward a small, 
overalled figure who was the centre of a banter¬ 
ing circle of guffaws. 

“Oh, him?” said Toolan condescendingly. 
“That’s the admiral—little bum of a sailor, just 
off ship.” 


29 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

“I'd like to know him,” said Van Tassel, still 
looking at the small sailor snuggling up to the big 
schooner. 

“Oh, he’ll keep,” was Toolan’s contemptuous 
comment. “So yer’ll be goin’ ?” he added, as Van 
Tassel still stood. 

“Yes, thanks.” 

“Bill!” called Toolan over his shoulder as he 
opened the door. In an undertone he explained 
to Van Tassel. “He’s the one I told yer about. 
Do what he says—he knows.” 

A big, bony man, with gray moustache under a 
slouch hat, came forward. “This is me young 
friend I was tellin’ yer about, Bill,” said Toolan. 
“Mr. Van Tassel—Mr. Baker—or Big Bill, yer 
can call ’im,” he added. “Big Bill’s his name.” 

“That’s right, Matty.” 

“An’ break ’im in right, Bill!” 

“Leave it ter me,” said Big Bill darkly. 

If Van Tassel had known the wisdom that had 
accumulated during Big Bill’s thirty years’ service 
as messenger to the government of a great city, 
he would have understood the value of his teacher. 

When they had shaken hands, and Van Tassel 
and Big Bill were in the street, Toolan still stood 
with hand on the door knob. “Bad night on the 
river,” he commented. The half-open door of 
the saloon sent out a shaft of orange light that 


30 


The Chanty that Settled it 

lost itself in the fog before it reached even the 
coal-pockets across the street. It was one of 
those thick nights that come to New York in the 
early spring, when the river craft chorus pipes 
up from the hush in sudden dismay, and keeps 
inland visitors awake with the weird play of its 
many-toned warnings. Far and near, hoarse and 
shrill, the air fairly throbbed with the river’s 
alarm. At times there would come silence, com¬ 
pressed and ominous, for a full minute; then a 
nervous blast would sound sharply into the damp¬ 
ness, as though it were at one’s ear, and the din 
of the answering whistles would be in full cry 
again. 

“Yeah. Keepin’ close, all that can,” said Big 
Bill. “Not much out there but ferryboats and 
tugs—they gotta keep runnin’. Well, good night, 
Matty.” 

Toolan started to respond, then turned his 
head inward, suddenly, as a growing volume of 
sound joined with the smell of tobacco smoke and 
good beer that came through the door. It was 
more than the steady hum of talk that marked 
the good order of Toolan’s Rest. There was a 
rhythm and a rumble to it, and now it was clearly 
a song, with a lilt that would lift an anchor from 
the deeps. A husky voice was leading, and the 
whole room was responding to the chorus. 


31 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

“It’s the admiral,” said Bill. 

Toolan started to raise a quieting hand. 

“Oh, please don’t,” pleaded Van Tassel, while 
Toolan looked around again in surprise. “Let’s 
hear it.” 

The song went on, and now Van Tassel could 
make out the words. 

“As I was a-walking down Ratcliff Highway-” 

The husky voice paused. Back came the chorus: 
‘Way, hay, blow the man down!” 

Then the verse: 

“A neat little craft I met under way;” 

Again the chorus, with a thump: 

“Give us time to blow the man down!” 

Toolan made no sign, and the room swung 
swiftly into the old chanty, chorus to verse, like 
a lot of boys out of school: 

“She was round in the counter and bluff in the bow, 
Way hay, blow the man down! 

So I took in all sail, and cried ‘way enough now/ 

Give us some time to blow the man down!” 

With a roar and a thumping of tables, the 
chanty came to its thundering end, with the rush 
of a great wave, pounding in from a storm at sea. 
Van Tassel stood a-tingling. 


32 



The Chanty that Settled it 

“That was great!” he murmured, as though 
something long untouched had stirred within him. 
“Well, good-night—thank you again!” 

“Good-night!” called Toolan, and Van Tassel 
and Big Bill started up First Avenue. 

“Did yer see the admiral?” asked Big Bill. 

“I saw a little fellow they called the admiral,” 
Van Tassel answered cautiously. 

“Oh, he ain’t a real admiral,” laughed the big 
man. “Just a sailor—an’ a reg’lar bum, at that! 
But he’s the deep-sea kind, an’ about the last o’ 
the old chantymen.” 

“Chantymen?” 

“Yeah, the feller that leads the chanties, when 
they’re busy with the capstan, or heavin’ on a 
rope, ’board ship—makes ’em heave better.” 

“I’d like to have met him,” said Van Tassel. 

“Not much ter run into,” came the disparag¬ 
ing reply. “Little bit of a cuss, an’ off his beat 
up here—he belongs down in South Street or Erie 
Basin, where the clippers used ter be. But Too¬ 
lan done ’im a favor once, an’ he comes around 
when he’s ashore.” 

They reached the corner, and Van Tassel 
stopped. “Look here,” he said, “it’s mighty nice 
of you to come along, but isn’t it out of your 
way?” 

“Nah,” said Big Bill, standing pat. 


33 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

“But really, I don’t need an escort, you know.” 
Van Tassel laughed. He was well-knit and rangy, 
with a certain firmness of chin that indicated 
ability to take care of himself. Withal he was of 
a gentle kind that folks like. Bill laughed too. 

“Oh, well,” he said, “that was Toolan’s idea, 
an’ we gotta go through with it. Anyway, they 
had a coupla stickups near here last week, an’ 
a gun ain’t so good when one o’ them fly guys has 
it against yer wishbone—might get nervous an’ 
let her go off. An’ when a feller looks like ready 
money, like you do—but they all know me, an’ 
my nickels an’ dimes ain’t worth-” 

“All right,” interrupted Van Tassel quickly, 
to put the older man at his ease, “thank you; it’s 
my pleasure.” As he looked about he noticed 
again the dreariness of the waste of lumber yards 
and vacant lots, with their dark nooks and 
shadows. There was not a soul in sight, nor were 
there lights, except the blurred pin-points that 
marked the street lamps struggling with the fog, 
separately and far from each other. The river 
chorus boomed and tooted, louder than ever. 
The rest was silence. It was a bad night on the 
river front. 

“Listen,” said Van Tassel, suddenly. 

From the direction of Toolan’s Rest a rollick¬ 
ing solo was hurling itself into the fog. 


34 



The Chanty that Settled it 

“Bound for the Rio Grande, 

And it’s Oh, Rio! Oh, you Rio!” 

The song stopped, then began again, and it was 
nearer. 


“So fare ye well, my bonny young girl, 

We’re bound for the Rio Grande!” 

A small figure in brown overalls rolled up out 
of the fog, and stood uncertainly, its wondering 
black eyes shining out from under a big sou’¬ 
wester. The ruddy round face bore a thick 
moustache that drooped apologetically to port 
and starboard. 

“Ship-ahoy!” The admiral adjusted himself 
to the dip of the sidewalk deck as he gave his 
husky hail. 

“Hello, Admiral!” replied Big Bill, with evi¬ 
dent enjoyment, as he looked down at the little 
sailor. 

“OF Big Bill,” ruminated the swaying admiral. 
Then he caught himself as he saw Van Tassel. 
He looked all the way up and down him, slowly, 
as he grappled with the idea that was gradually 
possessing him. At last he took a step forward, 
and addressed Van Tassel very confidentially. 

“Mate—have yer got a dollar—ter see me 
poor wife—in Newark-” 

“Hey, no yer don’t, interrupted Big Bill. 


35 



Van Tassel and Big Bill 

“Newark! Last time she was in New Rochelle !” 

The admiral, grasping one end of his mous¬ 
tache, paused to take his bearings. “She’s— 
she’s—moved!” he suddenly replied, looking up, 
with a smile of child-like innocence. 

Van Tassel began to laugh; he was radiantly 
happy with this adventure. He took out a dollar 
bill and gave it to the admiral, in spite of Bill’s 
gesture of disapproval. The admiral felt of the 
bill carefully, then took another long upward look 
at Van Tassel, and began to laugh foolishly. 

“Bully boys—ah, bully boys!” 

He gave Van Tassel a free-hand salute from 
the sou’wester, turned around and rolled off into 
the fog—back towards Toolan’s Rest. 

“There, wha’d I tell yer?” protested Big Bill. 
But the admiral was lost in the fog—all but a 
snatch of old song that bubbled joyfully in his 
wake. 


“I thought I heard the first mate say 
He’d give us grog three times a day, 

Belay!” 

The two men started west again. Big Bill left 
his charge at the Park Avenue corner. They 
had been talking politics all the way. 

“Don’t ferget now—termorrer night, at the 
club in Twenty-third Street,” Bill was saying. 


36 


The Chanty that Settled it 

“Donovan’ll be there, an’ glad ter see yer—an’ 
he’s the leader!” 

“Yes, I’ m going to be there sure,” replied Van 
Tassel, as they left each other. 

As he went through the hall of the old house 
of the Van Tassels, young Jimmy Van Tassel 
stopped midway, as though he had been called to, 
and found himself involuntarily looking over his 
shoulder at the portrait of that other James Van 
Tassel, of a hundred years ago. He had often 
stopped to look at the clean-cut face that looked 
down from its lace collar and ruffles, with the dis¬ 
tant ship showing through the window in the 
picture’s dim background. Now he looked again, 
with an eye to the old ship. Yes, she was a square- 
rigger, an old-time Yankee clipper, and the first 
Van Tassel had been her master; that was why 
she was in the picture. “The skipper of the 
Silver Heels”—so Jimmy’s father had described 
his ancestor. “And her heels were all she ever 
showed the other clippers,” he added. “They 
never caught the Silver Heels—she was queen 
of the seas!” 

And Jimmy’s grandmother had told him, as a 
boy, how the first Van Tassel, when he finally 
retired from the sea, had been wont to spend 
hours at the Battery, with old ship-owner cronies, 
looking down the broad bay and watching, watch- 


37 



Van Tassel and Big Bill 

ing for their ships to come in. What simple, 
rare old days they must have been! No tele¬ 
phones, cables or steamers—just the great snowy 
clippers, bowling along over the blue high seas, 
with their spices and silks and curios—and the 
Silver Heels first of them all, as she rode up the 
bay and dropped anchor off the Battery! The 
childhood tales came back with a rush, as the 
“admiral’s” chanties still rang in Jimmy’s ears, 
and he stood spellbound, looking at the portrait. 
When he fell asleep that night he was dreaming 
of a circle of half-clad sailormen, bending to the 
clanking pawls of the Silver Heels’ capstan, as 
they heaved to the chantyman’s song and the 
anchor came up, up, slowly and dripping. 

In the morning, when Jimmy told his mother of 
his adventures, she smiled in a wistful sort of way. 
“So you’ve heard the chanties,” she said. “Your 
father used to go all the way to South Street to 
hear them—he said they were music in his ears. 
But it’s hard to find them now; it was hard even 
when your father was younger, long before he 
died.” 

“Yes, mother,” said Jimmy quietly. Then he 
told her about Toolan and Big Bill. 

“Oh, that little Matty Toolan,” his mother 
interrupted, with a smile of recollection. “He 
was a little imp; they had the hardest time keep* 


38 


The Chanty that Settled it 

ing him in school. Your father used to say he 
would never grow up. But he did.” 

“Yes, and he told me all about politics, and so 
did his friend Big Bill. I’m going to start 
to-night!” And Jimmy recounted with a rush of 
enthusiasm all that those two worthies had 
revealed to him about “real politics.” When he 
ran short of breath, his mother fixed a curious 
look upon him. 

“You seem to like the old sea stories and the 
new political stories equally well,” she said. “Do 
you remember that your great-grandfather, James 
Yan Tassel, was an alderman for one term?” 

Jimmy gasped. “Oh, yes, I remember now,” 
he said. 

“I think they did better then,” his mother 
added gently. “James Van Tassel was one of the 
city’s first citizens in his time. He did a great 
deal of good in a quiet way—although they used 
to say that he swore a great deal! But, then, 
he was a seafaring man, you know.” 

When Jimmy went out, he took another look at 
the portrait as he went by. It almost seemed as 
though the skipper of the Silver Heels were try¬ 
ing to say something to him. Jimmy smiled and 
hurried on, but he felt a queer sense of being 
someone else, of having gone out of the same hall 
and looked up, in just the same way, oh, years 


39 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

and years ago—and, strangest of all, as though 
he knew just what was going to happen next, 
before it came, because it had all happened in 
just the same way, so many years ago. 

At the district club, in Twenty-third Street, Big 
Bill had a word with Donovan, the leader, before 
Jimmy arrived. “He’s a reg’lar feller, Tom,” 
said the big man as he got up. “Toolan knows 
him well. An’ his family are fine folks—Toolan 
swears by ’em. Yer’ll make no mistake ter put 
him in as captain o’ the twentieth. We’ve been 
without a captain there long enough, an’ this 
feller can do it. Let ’im go on with that high¬ 
brow debating society he’s got into, if he wants; 
he’ll soon be out of it, when he gets a look at 
the real thing.” 

“All right, Bill,” replied the leader, “it’s up to 
you—I’m takin’ him on your word.” 

“O K,” said Bill, as he went out to mount 
guard on the front steps, against Van Tassel’s 
arrival. 

When Jimmy had been ushered into the holy of 
holies, in the stuffy back room of the district club, 
and had there seen Donovan, and later emerged, 
he was led by Big Bill from one man to another 
in the outer rooms, until he had met most of the 
faithful. And he was captain of the twentieth! 


40 


The Chanty that Settled it 

He and Bill had talked it over, in a corner, until 
late in the evening. 

Jimmy little knew what he had undertaken. 
There were nearly three hundred families in the 
twentieth election district, in every walk of life 
and holding every shade of political belief. Many 
of them cared nothing one way or the other about 
politics; they were too busy capturing the dollar 
that kept the wolf from the door, or adding to 
the mountains of dollars that delivered the wolf 
at other people’s doors. A world in itself, a 
slice of little old New York, a blue daub on a 
political map, it was a university of humanity that 
the new election district captain had tackled. He 
went at it with a will, and he stumbled, but 
learned, and with every day he liked his job the 
more. He soon found opportunities to help here 
and there, when folks were in trouble, and this 
he did with such a genuine sympathy that he made 
lasting friends as he went. And more and more 
he came to know his neighbors, to live their lives, 
and love their little eccentricities. A new city had 
opened to him, his own, at his own doorstep— 
and yet it had always been there! 

Spring lengthened into summer, and still Jimmy 
stuck to his job, and he came to know New York 
at her best and “homiest,” in moments of mid¬ 
summer. Even Big Bill marvelled—though Too- 


41 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

lan always replied, “I told yer so!”—and reports 
of Jimmy’s work reached Donovan, who knew all. 

At the district club the new captain was as 
popular as he had become in his own election dis¬ 
trict. He had only one bad moment there. That 
was when he came in late, one night, and found he 
had missed the admiral, who had been and gone, 
under convoy by Toolan, leaving a riot of rollick¬ 
ing doggerel that was still stirring little chuckles 
from the faithful. 

“Oh, he’ll be back,” Big Bill had said consol¬ 
ingly, “an’ the wife’ll be in a new place next time 
—the little bum! He never had a wife in his 
life! But he makes his touch, every time, an’ 
yer never can tell whether he’s drunk or sober. 
That’s the funny part about him—he’s always 
jus’ the same—an’ they all like him!” Bill laughed, 
but Jimmy felt a pang of longing for one more 
sound of the chanties. 

Then, in August, the unexpected happened. 

Pickens resigned his job as alderman, and went 
to Schenectady to take a soft job on the barge 
canal. 

“Who’d a’ thought that!” exclaimed Big Bill. 
“Schenectady! They say his wife’s folks live near 
there, an’ it’s a permanent job, but—Schenectady! 
—that’s north o’ Yonkers!” 

But Pickens had already gone, and his succes- 


42 


The Chanty that Settled it 

sor must be chosen at once, for there impended a 
special meeting of the Board of Aldermen, called 
for Friday—only four days away—to put through 
an emergency school appropriation, and every 
vote in the board would be needed. All of which 
spelled trouble for Donovan. For it was up to 
Donovan, as Pickens’ leader, to name the new 
man. The Board, which fills its own vacancies, 
would ratify his choice for the rest of Pickens’ 
term, as a matter of ordinary courtesy. 

There are always candidates a-plenty for the 
job of alderman, but this time Donovan was in 
hotter water than usual. To settle in four days 
the conflicting ambitions that buzzed through the 
district clubhouse was a test of leadership in 
itself. But to get the right man meant more. 
Donovan looked upon the three men who had 
already announced their candidacies as second- 
raters. That was the hitch. He could pick up 
someone else and force him down the organiza¬ 
tion’s throat—he had the votes, for the asking— 
for that or anything else. But that was not Dono¬ 
van’s way of leading. The organization must be 
consulted, and satisfied. All of which promised 
four busy days for Donovan. On the second day, 
he called Big Bill into the back room at the club. 

“Shut the door,” he said. “Whaddaya know?” 

Donovan was stocky, quick and black-haired, 


43 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

with a pair of dark eyes that were as keen as the 
gray lights that looked out from under Big Bill s 
grizzled thatch. Also he was leader—a “practi¬ 
cal idealist,” someone had called him—loved and 
feared. 

“Norton and Briggs are out,” replied Big Bill, 
coming to the point at once. “Ketcham got Nor¬ 
ton, and Briggs quit. Ketcham’s got thirteen 
captains out o’ thirty—rest holdin’ off—no one 
else in the field, only Ketcham.” 

“Um-m,” mused Donovan. “Ketcham pretty 
strong?” 

“Yeah, gettin’ stronger—says he’s been a cap¬ 
tain six years an’ no recognition—only odd jobs. 
That gets ’em.” 

Donovan looked concerned. “Ketcham won’t 
do,” he said. Bill registered inwardly the death 
of the Ketcham ambition, and waited. 

“Got any one in mind?” Donovan inquired 
casually, after a pause. Bill sprang at the bait. 
He looked over his shoulder, leaned forward, and 
in a hoarse whisper suggested the name for which 
the leader was fishing. The name was Van Tassel. 

Donovan looked surprised. “Too new, Bill— 
only four months a captain.” Then Bill launched 
into the merits of the Van Tassel case, and set it 
forth at length, in just the way in which Donovan 
desired to set it forth himself, later on. 


44 


The Chanty that Settled it 

When Big Bill left the little back room, there 
was a plan afoot. First, two of the Ketcham cap¬ 
tains were to be detached. Donovan would take 
care of that. Thirteen was too close to a majority, 
and accidents will happen. Then a brand-new 
candidacy was to be made to boom. Of course, 
Van Tassel could be “put over,” by brute force 
of votes, if the contest were a duel; but that would 
leave bad blood, and a rift in the lute of district 
harmony. Some other means must be devised. 

“Have y’seen O’Brien lately?” Donovan had 
inquired. Bill waited. “Now, he has that furni¬ 
ture store, an’ it wouldn’t hurt his business any to 
be alderman—and he wouldn’t mind much either 
if he didn’t get it. Good advertisin’, either way. 
He’s easy goin’. An’ I can make it up to him in 
another way. Wonder if he ever thought of it?” 

Bill still waited, not missing a word. 

“There might be a dozen captains would be 
with him—he’s well liked. Might even run Ket¬ 
cham into a deadlock—who knows? Now, 
Ketcham ain’t so bad, but he’s got a good job 
down with the Borough President—got it from 
the organization, too—and he just ain’t up to 
bein’ alderman. We gotta have a good man, 
who can think and talk and pull with everybody, 
or we’ll never get any new blood into the organi¬ 
zation. The young fellers ain’t cornin’ in—and 


45 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

we need ’em more every year. Seems to me now, 
if Van Tassel got a few votes, while O’Brien and 
Ketcham were whackin’ each other, it might— 
start sump’n? Then, when they get tired, Van 
Tassel gets a few more—an’ then, perhaps— 
huh?” 

Big Bill nodded, his eyes alight. 

“Captains’ meetin’ Thursday,” Donovan con¬ 
tinued. “That’s to-morrow night—time enough!” 

“A’right, chief.” And Bill left the back room. 
He had his orders—although the leader had 
merely asked a few questions. Donovan smiled 
as he thought of the effectiveness with which Bill 
could be counted upon to deliver a message. 

Within the next hour, O’Brien had become 
greatly interested in a casual political suggestion 
from Big Bill. So had half a dozen captains. 
Van Tassel could wait until the morning, although 
there were three captains who, all unknown to 
their youthful protege, had suddenly become Van 
Tassel bitter-enders. The Ketcham captains were 
plainly worried—two of them had just switched 
to O’Brien. 

When Donovan reached the club Thursday 
evening, the faithful were clustered on the steps 
and high stoop of the old brownstone front, the 
first floor of which housed the district club. It 
was a hot night, and the coats of the faithful were 


46 


The Chanty that Settled it 

off. Donovan went slowly up the steps, nodding 
to right and left. 

“Hello, chief! H’lo, Tom!” He passed on 
to the back room. 

“Bill!” 

The big man followed his chief into the little 
room and closed the door. It was a long con¬ 
ference. “Now, remember,” said the leader, in 
conclusion, “when I shift the gavel to my left 
hand an’ look out o’ the window—that’s the 
signal for the break. Wait for me!” 

“A’right, chief.” 

Donovan smiled as Bill rose. “I saw O’Brien,” 
he added. “He’s on, and won’t peep. He don’t 
care—just laughed. An’ I’ve tipped off a few o’ 
the rest. Except for Ketcham an’ a couple o’ his 
bullheads, they’ll all be lookin’ for some kind o’ 
signal anyhow—an’ they’ll go like a flock o’ 
pigeons when they get it! Wisht I’d known how 
quick they’d take to that young Van Tassel—then 
I needn’t’a bothered O’Brien. Well, we’ll leave 
the signal stand—a little fun won’t hurt ’em. 
Only—” there was a twinkle in Donovan’s eye— 
“look out around nine o’clock. Sump’n may break, 
outside the meetin’.” 

When Donovan called the meeting to order, in 
the back part of the big room, they closed the 
folding doors, to shut off the rest of the room in 


47 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

front. But the old doors were far from sound¬ 
proof, and there was an interested assembly 
beyond them, awaiting the result and perhaps 
hopeful of picking up somethig now and then as 
the contest went on. A steady buzz of conversa¬ 
tion seeped in. The district was on tiptoe. 

The roll call showed every captain present 
except Van Tassel. He had refused to vote or 
even take part in a meeting where he was a con¬ 
testant, and Big Bill had finally given in to this 
dictate of delicacy. He had Jimmy tethered in 
the drug store across the street, however, where 
he could be communicated with, if need be. 
Ketcham was at the meeting, straining at the bit, 
and ready to vote, for himself. 

When the nominating speeches had been made 
and seconded, for both Ketcham and O’Brien, 
Big Bill nominated Van Tassel, and Briggs, who 
had quit, seconded the nomination. The room 
was already stifling, and collars were following 
coats as the steaming captains stripped for the 
roll call. “Vote, vote!” called two or three. But 
Donovan, cool and inscrutable, raised his hand. 

“The chair recognizes Mr. Rafferty,” he said. 

“Hey, Smoke, cut it short!” came a voice. 

The little man with the black hair gave the 
interrupter a withering look. 

“ ’ster Chairman!” he said, “I m-move—close 


ft 


48 


The Chanty that Settled it 

nominations—an’ secretary cast one—b-b-ballot 
—for James—Van—T—Tassel—our next Aid 

“Hey, there!” 

“Hey-y, what the hell-” 

“Where do you get off to-” 

The chorus drowned Smoke’s peroration. 
Ketcham hopped up with the avidity of a bird 
that has just captured a worm. “Point of order, 
Mr. Chairman, point of order,” he chirped 
shrilly. 

Donovan’s gavel came down. 

“Sit down, Smoke; you’re out of order,” he 
said. A loud laugh went up. 

Smoke looked helplessly over at Big Bill, and 
then sat down. “Gee, ain’t that the way they 
always do it?” he said to the man next him. “Shut 
up,” was the reply. Smoke sank back, muttering. 

“Any more nominations?” asked Donovan. He 
paused. “Nominations closed,” he said. “Roll 
call. Secretary—call the roll.” 

When the twenty-nine answers had been duly 
recorded, the secretary announced the result. 
Ketcham had eleven votes; O’Brien, ten; and Van 
Tassel, five. There were three not voting. At 
once there was a heightened buzz from beyond 
the doors. The district was “on.” 


49 





Van Tassel and Big Bill 

“Takes fifteen votes to nominate,” said Dono¬ 
van. “What’s your pleasure?” 

The three captains who had not voted com¬ 
plained to their neighbors. 

“Why don’t he tell us who he wants an’ be 
done with it?” 

“He’s got me holdin’ off here, an’ I might miss 
gettin’ aboard the right roll call—then where’d 
I stand with the new alderman?” 

“Yeah—helluvaway to do things!” 

The rest of the captains were alert but content. 
Only Ketcham and the little knot about him 
seemed anxious. 

“Well?” queried Donovan. 

“Roll call!” boomed a deep voice from a far 
corner. 

“Call the roll,” commanded Donovan, turning 
to the secretary. The gavel still rested in his 
right hand. A sigh went round the room. 

At the second name, the buzz that came through 
the doors grew louder, and a ripple of laughter 
blended with it. The secretary cleared his throat. 

“Louder!” cried a voice encouragingly. 

The noise from without increased, and now 
there was a thumping on the floor as though a 
vigorous clog were under way. Shouts of ap¬ 
proval mingled with the racket. Big Bill slid 
the doors apart a few inches and put his head 


50 


The Chanty that Settled it 

through. “A little order, please—a little order!” 
he shouted. But his head stayed there, as though 
he were watching something. The captains 
turned sweatily in their chairs and looked up. 
And then a husky sing-song voice came rolling in 
from the front. 

“She’s a hearty flash packet, 

The Dreadnaught’s her name!” 

There was a delighted silence, and then a roar 
of laughter ran over the meeting. 

“It’s the admiral,” said two or three at once. 

“Keep yer hand on yer clock—the admiral’s 
here!” 

“Hey, put that tugboat out!” 

“Throw ’im overboard, Bill!” 

The meeting was in an uproar. In the middle 
of it the admiral’s foghorn sounded again, and 
they stopped to catch the words, while Donovan 
waited. 

“A Yankee ship’s gone down the river, 

Blow, boys, blow! 

Her masts and yards they shine like silver, 

Blow, boys, bully boys, blow! 

And who do you think is captain of her? 

Blow, boys, blow! 

One-eyed Kelly the Bowery runner, 

Blow, boys, bully boys, blow!” 

The uproar broke out all over again. 


51 



Van Tassel and Big Bill 

“Hooray!” 

“Go it, admiral!” 

“Hit ’em again, Kelly!” 

The whole room, fore and aft, thundered its 
laughing applause for the old topsail halyard 
chanty! But the admiral was under way, and he 
broke into the applause with a hoarse cry. 

“Where’s ’at bully boy—Van—Tassel?” he 
called. “Where’s—Ald’man—Van—gwan, I 
won’t siddown—I nom’nate—Ald’man—Jimmy 
—Van—Tassel!” 

The admiral’s rolling speech was drowned in a 
burst of laughter. 

“Hey, put that feller out,” Ketcham cried 
sharply. There was a lull in the merriment. 

“He’s a bes’ Ald’man—whole city—Noo York 
—gay—me—dollar—wi f e—’ ’ 

Then the admiral’s voice was entirely lost. 
Some one had taken him by the overalls and sud¬ 
denly extinguished him. Big Bill closed the doors. 
As the laughter subsided, Donovan’s face, despite 
its grin, was a study. He was thinking of his 
talk with Toolan that afternoon, of a parting in¬ 
junction about a “scuttle o’ suds to start him 
rollin’, at the right time.” He shifted the gavel 
to his left hand and suddenly turned and looked 
out of the window. It was nine o’clock. 

“Call the roll, and begin over again,” he said. 


52 


The Chanty that Settled it 

There were giggles all over the room, which 
grew into more laughter. Even Donovan was 
holding in with difficulty. Only Ketcham looked 
anxious. 

“Van Tassel—Jimmy Van Tassel—James Van 
Tassel—Van Tassel for alderman—” the roll 
call was snapping through like a bunch of fire¬ 
crackers. 

“I vote for Admiral Van Tassel,” said Smoke 
when his name was reached, and he looked blank 
when they laughed. “What-t’-hell’s-a-matter wid 
youse guys?” he protested. 

“Admiral Van Tassel! I vote for the admiral!” 
came the last two answers, with leers at the 
unfortunate Smoke. 

The secretary stood up. 

“Van Tassel, twenty-six; Ketcham, three,” he 
said, and there was a shout of applause. 

“Make it unanimous!” yelled some one. And 
they did, though Ketcham looked dubious as well 
as amazed. 

In the front room there was an instant answer¬ 
ing roar, as the vote was announced. 

“Van Tassel! Good man! Couldn’t be bet¬ 
ter! Admiral, you done it! Say, Admiral, you’re 
some politician!” 

The room was in an uproar of surprised delight 
—and no one more so than the admiral—though 


53 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

he was not yet quite sure what had happened. Big 
Bill had gone out long before the roll call was 
over, and had brought Jimmy hurrying across the 
street, after a slap on the back and a “congratula¬ 
tions, alderman,” while tears stood in his honest 
old eyes. It was Jimmy who thought he saw a 
familiar red-headed figure disappearing around 
the corner, as they crossed. But Bill gave him no 
time for investigation. At the door they met 
the admiral, in the old overalls under the big 
sou’wester. 

“Hello, Admiral,” said Jimmy, “they tell me 
you did it!” He had heard the chanties again 
from across the street! He laughed, but for an 
instant he felt a strange quiver, of old, deep seas, 
of a century ago. 

The admiral collected himself carefully. 
“Huh-uh,” he chuckled. “Guess I did! An’—” 
he lowered his voice confidentially—“the wife— 
she’s in Perth Amboy—an’ I need a dollar to—” 

“Whoa—back up!” interrupted Big Bill. “Last 
time yer said Paterson.” 

The admiral smiled, as a cherub, while he 
thought. 

“She’s—she’s—moved!” he suddenly replied, 
triumphantly. 

And Jimmy handed o^er the dollar. He was 
the alderman. 


54 


CALLAHAN OF CARMINE 

STREET 


A lderman van tassel stood on the 

steps of the big house in lower Park Ave¬ 
nue, that had been home to him since the day he 
was born, all of twenty-five years ago, and it was 
plain to be seen that he hesitated. He looked to 
the north and south and drew a deep breath. 
What a morning for a walk! The mid-October 
air fairly crackled in its crispness, the spent leaves 
rustled in the great tree overhead, the white 
clouds floated, high and far, on a bowl of deep, 
dazzling blue. If there were only a little less to 
do that morning, a little more time to do it in! 
For the Honorable James Van Tassel, who had 
become alderman of the 75th district in August, 
to fill an unexpired term, was now before the 
people for election, by the votes of the people, 
for the new term of two years—and he was very 
busy canvassing the people! Every minute counted 
in this business of vote-getting; and the subway 
would whisk him to the City Hall in no time at 
all. He could polish off his errands there, and be 
back in the district by noon. And yet, an extra 


55 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

half-hour put in on a swift swing to the city’s 
capitol afoot would be worth twice its time, in 
“pep,” on a day like this. Incidentally, he re¬ 
flected, by making a slight detour through Wash¬ 
ington Square, he might just happen to meet that 
distracting young person, Miss Sally Skeffington, 
who was spending the winter with her aunt, Miss 
Sophia Skeffington, in the old red and gray house 
on the north side of the square. With a gesture 
of decision, the alderman went out through the 
gate and strode off to the south, as he warmed up 
to the long walk. The weather had settled the 
matter. Of course! 

As Van Tassel’s slender, well-knit form swung 
into Washington Square, taking the curbs with a 
leap, he slowed up, just a little, and his eyes swept 
the square with a quick, reconnoitring glance. 
Suddenly a light came into them, and the alder¬ 
man’s features, clean cut and entirely engaging, 
relaxed into a display of joy unabashed. He 
swerved in his course, just a little. 

“Oh, good morning—how do you do!” he ex¬ 
claimed in radiant astonishment, as he lifted his 
hat and stopped, in a sidepath that was very much 
out of his way. 

“Good morning, Mr. Van Tassel,” responded 
Miss Sophia Skeffington, with precision. She was 
slight and alert, with white hair, and a pair of 


56 


Callahan of Carmine Street 

keen, dark eyes behind her gold-bowed glasses. 
She spoke crisply, but there was a shade of 
amused resignation in her eyes as she noted the 
exuberance of the alderman’s astonishment. 

“Good morning!” echoed Miss Sally Skeffing- 
ton. But she was laughing outright, her own 
dark eyes dancing with mirth as she tilted up her 
pretty chin in delighted appreciation of the whole 
situation. Then she gave the knight errant a look 
that sent his head spinning. 

“You seem to be in a great hurry,” said Miss 
Sophia—“pursuing the electorate, I suppose?” 

“Yes,” replied the alderman eagerly, “every 
minute counts; I have no time at all, any more!” 

“But what a beautiful day for a walk-” 

“Wonderful! All the way from home to the 
City Hall—fifty minutes, if I go fast and take 
the shortest way!” 

“Yes—how nice to have this old square just on 
the shortest way,” said Miss Sophia sweetly. Van 
Tassel began to blush. 

“Oh, Aunt Sophia!” exclaimed Miss Sally 
Skeffington in dismay. And then there was re¬ 
lenting, and the stroll toward the old house 
beyond the trees was extraordinarily leisurely, 
considering that young Jimmy Van Tassel, with 
whom every minute counted, went all the way to 
the steps to insure safe escort. 


57 



Van Tassel and Big Bill 

When the alderman started south again, 
through the square, his thoughts were roving so 
fast and far that he did not see the park laborer, 
just ahead in the path, until he brushed against 
the brown overalls and stepped quickly to one 
side. Then he stopped to look. On the bench 
a young man in “smart,” tight-fitting clothes was 
staring insolently up at the laborer who stood be¬ 
fore him. An abandoned newspaper, fluttering 
as though about to blow away, lay on the pave¬ 
ment between them. 

“Please put the paper in the can, sir. That’s 
the rule, so they won’t blow about.” 

Jimmy looked sharply at the man in the over¬ 
alls who had spoken so respectfully and quietly. 
He was middle-aged and well built, with a fine- 
looking profile under the brown straw hat. As he 
stood waiting, the man on the bench curled his 
lips into a lazy sneer. 

“Ah, go put it in yourself,” he said. In a flash 
the laborer became something more. His fists 
closed and his jaw protruded, as he bent toward 
the man on the bench. 

“I asked you decent to do what y’ ought with¬ 
out my askin’,” he said tensely. “Now you’ll do 
it anyhow!” He raised his voice. “Pick it up, 
d’ y’ hear me? Pick it up, and carry it over there 


58 


Callahan of Carmine Street 


—now—before you land in the bottom of the 
can yourself!” 

The young man started to rise, hesitated, then, 
with a shrug of the shoulders, reached down 
slowly and picked up the paper. He got up and 
walked over to the green can. The paper fell 
within as he slouched off sheepishly, without look¬ 
ing back. 

Jimmy started forward impulsively. “That 
was bully—the way you did it! I’d like to shake 
hands with you.” 

“Thank you,” said the laborer, as he drew his 
hand over his overalls and then put it in Jimmy’s. 

“If you don’t mind, I’m going to speak to the 
commissioner about it,” Jimmy hurried on. “I 
don’t know him, but they say he’s a good man, 
and the kind that would appreciate the way you 
handled that fellow—might write you a good 
letter! Anyhow, a good word does no harm— 
and we hear plenty of the other kind—yes? You 
know, I’m alderman here—Van Tassel’s my 
name.” 

“Oh-h, ye-es.” The man in the overalls had 
taken Jimmy’s outspoken admiration quietly, with 
just the suggestion of a good-humored smile. 
Already he had recognized the knight errant of 
the morning—and of other mornings! For the 
man of the parks sees all. But now he looked at 


59 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

the younger man with a different interest. “So 
you’re the new alderman,” he said. “Well, thanks 
again. My name’s Callahan—Dan Callahan 

laborer.” 

“Glad to know you, Mr. Callahan—mighty 
glad,” said Jimmy, with a parting grip of the 
laborer’s hand. “I’m going to see the commis¬ 
sioner right away.” 

“Er—Alderman—” Jimmy paused. Callahan 
was thinking. “If y’ don’t mind,” he added, “I 
can do without that letter, if y’ could ask the 
commissioner to let me stay here, in Washington 
Square. He’s new—only in office a month—and 
things are uncertain. There’s been transfers 
already, and I don’t want to get shifted up to 
Mount Morris again. That’s a long way from 
where I live, over in Carmine Street, and there’s 
a powerful steep hill, in that park, to be goin’ up 
an’ down pickin’ up things off of all day. I’d like 
to stay near home—it’s better for the wife. Could 
y’ say a word for me?” 

“Yes, with pleasure,” Jimmy assented, and 
went on his way. As he turned into Wooster 
Street, he looked over his shoulder at the red- 
and-gray house, and then hurried on, humming a 
little refrain that fitted the words “and she lives 
—down in—our alley!” In the square, Callahan 
was carrying on, with pike and sack, spearing bits 


60 


Callahan of Carmine Street 

of paper and cigarette-boxes—“pickin’ up things.” 
He stopped a moment in the middle of the lawn, 
as he faced the house where the first tableau of 
the morning had ended. Then a grin spread over 
his face, and, as he bent down to spear a far-flung 
copy of last night’s Dispatch, a pair of startled 
sparrows heard him humming to himself “and she 
lives—down in—our al-lee!” 

When Jimmy was shown into the office of the 
park commissioner, over in the Municipal Build¬ 
ing, he found himself faced by a little man at a 
big desk, who listened profoundly and then asked 
a great many questions, very rapidly. “All right, 
alderman, I’ll keep him there,” said the little man 
as the alderman rose to go; “but I want to make 
it plain that there must be no politics in it. You’re 
running for office, and you know what that means 
—you want all the votes you can get. And you’ve 
really saved Callahan. I was just about to send 
him back to Mount Morris. He did good work 
there. But you must not play politics with it. 
Callahan can vote as he likes—that’s his legal 
right—but that’s all—no campaigning and no 
electioneering! I want the employees of this 
department to keep out of politics—like the army 
—and I’m going to see that they keep out!” 

“Why, I hadn’t thought of that,” protested 
Jimmy. “Of course I’ll tell him not to elec- 


61 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

tioneer, for me or any one else, if that’s best for 
him.” Jimmy’s honesty of statement was so clear 
and so simple that the commissioner laughed. 

“When you’ve been alderman a little longer, 
you’ll know more about it,” and the little man 
patted Jimmy on the shoulder. If the commis¬ 
sioner had been in office a little longer himself, 
he would not have made his speech. Not yet has 
any one arrested the flow of the tides or the fall¬ 
ing of the rain. 

Jimmy searched out Callahan that afternoon. 
They conversed over Callahan’s wheelbarrow. 
When the good news had been recounted and 
Jimmy had stood up manfully under the grip of 
gratitude that had nearly broken his hand, he 
acquainted the laborer with the commissioner’s 
strictures on the politics of city employees. 

“They said he was queer,” confirmed Callahan. 

“But really you ought to be careful,” urged 
Jimmy, “for your own sake, and your family’s.” 

“And you’re a queer alderman,” continued 
Callahan, as though he had not heard. “Y’ don’t 
know my politics, and y’ don’t even ask about ’em 
—and you just done me the best favor I ever 
got.” He looked up. “Do you really think all 
those army officers keep out o’ politics when they 
want a transfer? Do you think any one, outside 
o’ Sing Sing, keeps out o’ politics? And don’tcha 


62 


Callahan of Carmine Street 

think I got as good a right as any one to do what 
I like? I’m a city employee, and a laborer, but 
ain’t I still an American?” 

Jimmy was thinking. “I know some of my 
own friends who keep out of politics,” he said. 
“Perhaps they ought to be getting in, before we 
talk about taking other people out.” 

Callahan looked as though he had not under¬ 
stood. Then he put out his hand as Jimmy made 
to go. “Well, thanks, alderman,” he said. “I’ll 
think over that dope about politics. But a friend’s 
a friend, and I say you done me a favor I’ll never 
forget.” 

“Oh, you did it yourself!” laughed Jimmy. 
“You earned it—that was bully!” And he 
laughed again as he thought of the smart young 
man’s expedition of the morning. 

As the campaign drew to a close Jimmy found 
fewer and fewer opportunities of seeing Miss 
Sally Skeffington. He did not see Callahan at 
all, and the incident of the newspaper passed from 
his mind almost entirely. At the district club, on 
the first floor of the old brownstone house in 
Twenty-third Street, there was enough excitement 
to efface memory itself. The city was in the grip 
of a roaring, red-hot campaign that blazed mer¬ 
rily away, from Tottenville to Riverdale, from 
Chelsea to the Rockaways, and nowhere was it 


63 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

hotter than in the 75th aldermanic district. 
The struggle over the head of the ticket and 
the intermediate offices was bitter enough, for 
the fighting has always been good in this old mid¬ 
town bailiwick, all along the line. But down at 
the tail of the ticket—where meet the candidates 
for alderman—there was a shindy on to stir even 
the oldtimers. Van Tassel’s opponent was Mark 
Ryan, a rich saloonkeeper, who had been routed 
out by the leaders to “do up that young highbrow 
from Park Avenue and do him up good!” And 
Ryan was busy! Ryan was out to win, and every 
day the reports that came back to the district club 
in Twenty-third Street told of the waxing strength 
of Ryan. A week before election, at midnight, 
Van Tassel’s leader, Donovan, called him into the 
back room of the district club—the stuffy little 
back room that was the innermost inner shrine. 

“Siddown,” he said, quietly, as he pulled out a 
big cigar. Donovan was stocky, keen, and re¬ 
sourceful—and chary of words. He blew out a 
cloud of smoke. “You’re up against a tough 
fight,” he said, as he looked kindly at the young 
alderman. “Toughest fight since I been leader. 
Ryan’s strong, an’ gettin’ stronger. A month 
ago you’d ’a’ won by a thousand. Now it’s any¬ 
body’s fight. But we’re goin’ to win!” Donovan 
brought his fist down on the desk with a bang, 


64 


Callahan of Carmine Street 

and waited a moment. “I just wanted to get that 
into your head,” he went on. “You’re new at this 
game, an’ there’s a half a dozen croakers ’round 
here that ain’t any too friendly—Ketcham an’ his 
crowd. Don’t take any stock in their dope. Jus’ 
keep on goin’ the way you’re doin’, makin’ 
friends—an’ keep a-goin’—every minute! Y’ 
might win by one vote, an’ it’s that one vote 
you’re after, all the time—remember that! Go 
ahead now—you’re doin’ fine—an’ I can see y’ 
got the guts. Tell Baker to come in.” 

“Certainly.” Jimmy went out without further 
reply. He had come to know Donovan as an 
astute leader, a man of his word, and a fighter. 
He had a feeling that not yet had he come to 
know him as an intimate. But he trusted him. 
With Baker it was different—Big Bill Baker, his 
first friend in the district, the man who had first 
proposed him for alderman—as rugged and faith¬ 
ful as a Newfoundland dog! The big man’s gray 
eyes under the tousled hair looked his affection 
as Jimmy delivered the message. 

“Siddown,” said Donovan, as Big Bill shut the 
door of the holy of holies carefully behind him. 
Donovan waited a moment, examined his cigar, 
then looked up. “Bill, we got Van Tassel elected, 
’cept for one thing,” he said. “That’s Ketcham’s 
district.” 


65 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

“Yeah,” said Big Bill, an ugly look spreading 
over his face. 

Donovan waved his hand. “Oh, I expected it,” 
he said, “ever since we turned Ketcham down in 
August to put in Van Tassel for the rest o’ the 
term. Ketcham wanted it bad. Well, that’s 
done. We know Ketcham wouldn’t do for aider- 
man, an’ we done right. Van Tassel’s made good 
—an’ he’ll do better yet. But he’s new in the 
organization, an’ he ain’t known, an’ Ryan—I 
don’t think Ryan would ’a’ taken the nomination 
against any one else—not this year! But he sees 
a chance to do up this young Van Tassel. An’ 
Ryan’s strong.” 

Donovan paused again. “Well, that’s past.” 
He flicked the ashes from his cigar. “Now there’s 
Ketcham.” He went on, his eyes half closed, as 
though thinking aloud: “Captain o’ the tenth 
election district for six years. Fairly good cap¬ 
tain. Now he’s sore. Layin’ down. No good to 
talk to him. Just dead sore. An’ he’s played 
foxy. Can’t pin it on him. An’ it’s too late to 
break in a new captain there. We’ll do that after 
election—when Ketcham’s kicked out. But now, 
with Ryan pushin’ us hard everywhere, we gotta 
carry Ketcham’s district—it’s gettin’ too close for 
comfort. We don’t often carry that district, but 
this year we gotta do it, to win. An’ I heard 


66 


Callahan of Carmine Street 

sump’n last night, Bill. There's an undercurrent 
settin’ in for Van Tassel right in Ketcham’s own 
district. Just a little. But I don’t know where 
it comes from—Van Tassel ain’t acquainted at 
all, down there. We gotta find out, an’ nurse it 
along, if we can. We gotta do sump’n there, Bill. 
I tell yer I’m worried. Don’t pass that on. Can 
y’ take a look aroun’ there? Keep away from 
Kenna—you know—the captain agin us—he’s 
reg’lar. An’ go quiet. We gotta be careful.” 

“A’ right, chief.” Big Bill went out. Dono¬ 
van stayed, and thought, alone. An hour later 
he went out himself. “I don’t get it,” he was 
muttering. It was two o’clock in the morning. 

For two days Big Bill was not seen at the club, 
nor in his own election district, nor even at the 
office in the Municipal Building down-town, where 
he served the city’s government as a messenger— 
except at rare and necessary intervals. 

Meanwhile Jimmy “kept on goin’.” By day 
and by night he canvassed the district, pulling 
door-bells here and pushing buttons there, mount¬ 
ing endless flights of stairs, meeting endless as¬ 
sortments of families, shaking hands with the 
fathers, passing the time of day with the mothers, 
and—always—ready for a romp with the kids, 
and their cats and dogs, if they gave him half a 
chance! He usually felt friendly but foolish when 


67 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

he met the parents; it was hard to know what to 
say, on these tours of self-exhibition. For he 
could not talk politics. “Oh, no,” Big Bill had 
said, “let the big fellers do that—y’ might get 
into an argyment, an’ make bad friends.” But 
he “fell for” the kids with such genuine enjoyment 
that the parents usually laughed as he left—and 
he had to laugh himself when he thought it over 
afterward. It was a queer way to run for aider- 
man ! 

Of course he made speeches every night, from 
the tail of a tired-looking truck, drawn by a 
tired-looking horse, and backed up at corners 
where the coincidence of a saloon added to the 
complacency of the audience. On these expedi¬ 
tions a coterie of the faithful would escort the 
candidate to the corner, and, following a sputter¬ 
ing of red fire, and the plaint of a fife and ruffle 
of a drum concealed within the truck, would ap¬ 
plaud vigorously from the sidewalk when Jimmy 
was introduced as “Our next alderman!” as he 
mounted the tail-board. When he ventured a 
gesture in the course of his harangue, the faithful 
would burst into further applause. As a rule the 
citizenry pulled on their pipes and stood pat, on 
these occasions. 

Then there was campaign “literature” to be 
prepared, captains to be seen, errands to be run, 


68 





Thom*.' Toc-An ry 




It a9. 

ITo'ffer 

Shi ;k 

fi 

'if' 










1 


Jimmy was introduced as “Our Next Alderman!” 





















































































































/ 



. 

ft 









Callahan of Carmine Street 

favors to be done—Jimmy had little time for rest 
or sleep. He began to learn what it is to cam¬ 
paign in a close district. His cheeks grew thinner 
and his eyes heavier. He felt an increasing weari¬ 
ness as each day dawned. But he “kept on goin’.” 
And election was only a few days away. 

On Thursday evening, late, Big Bill reported 
to Donovan, in the back room. “I got part of it,” 
he said. “Ketcham’s layin’ down, coverin’ his 
tracks. Kenna’s on. So’s Ryan. But this new 
thing has got ’em all guessin’, an’ I can’t get the 
dope. It’s the Crowbar Club—y’ know that old 
beefsteak club that meets over Curry’s place? 
Started with a track-repairin’ gang on the old 
horse-cars, forty years ago.” Donovan nodded. 
“It’s a strong club, an’ never was in politics before 
—just social. But the Crowbars is out for Van 
Tassel, strong, an’ no one knows why. They’re 
sayin’ he done ’em a hell of a favor—you know— 
same old gag. An’ all under cover. They even 
got sample ballots, an’ they’re practisin’ splittin’ 
for Van Tassel! Most of ’em never voted our 
way, an’ they can’t get out o’ the habit o’ votin’ 
under the crab—all they know is the party em¬ 
blem. Now they’re practicin’ goin’ over at the 
tail o’ the ticket an’ puttin’ a cross under the 
pigeon, for Van Tassel. It’s queer. One big 
feller said he was practisin’ every night, for he 


69 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

couldn’t keep his hand away from the crab when 
he took up a ballot, an’ he was afraid he’d go the 
same old way when he got in the booth. But the 
Crowbars is out for Van Tassel. An’ they’re 
strong.” 

“A’ right, Bill, leave ’em alone,” said Dono¬ 
van. u It’s inside stuff, an’ we better keep out. 
Hope it’s on the level.” 

“Yeah, it’s on the level, all right,” said Bill. 

When the night before election came, and 
Jimmy had made his last speech and his last 
canvassing trip, he left the district club-house 
early. So did Donovan. So did Big Bill, and 
every one of the thirty captains. To-morrow 
would be a gruelling day, beginning early and end¬ 
ing late, and sleep was priceless. Donovan was 
the last to leave the club-house. He was satisfied 
with the campaign. Not a stone had been left 
unturned, not a trick left untaken. The captains 
and the workers had fought as a team, with a fine 
spirit and a growing enthusiasm as the campaign 
waxed hotter. To a man they had shunned the 
club-house, except for captains’ meetings; they 
were in their districts, where the votes were, and 
where they belonged—let the amateurs sit at the 
seats of the mighty—those delicate annuals who 
call at headquarters and look wise, once a year! 
The captains were in the field! The house-to- 


70 


Callahan of Carmine Street 


house canvass had been the best that Donovan 
had ever witnessed—and he had ways of knowing 
what went on. Only Ketcham’s district was in 
bad shape—but then, it might not be—the “inside 
stuff” from the Crowbars? That was a question. 
And the aldermanic result was a bigger question. 
Donovan admitted that to himself. His closest 
estimates showed a majority of less than a couple 
of hundred, this way or that. Ryan’s strength 
had mounted steadily, and to the very end. So 
had Van Tassel’s. Jimmy had “taken”—people 
liked him! Neck and neck they had come up to 
the finish, and it was anybody’s race. Never had 
Donovan seen the district so stirred—it was war 
to the knife and to the last vote! Well, to-mor¬ 
row it would be hammered out in the white heat 
of the greatest race the old 75th had ever seen. 
To-morrow! Donovan went home to bed. 

In the morning Jimmy breakfasted by candle¬ 
light in the big house on Park Avenue. As he 
hurried to the district club he met other men 
hurrying through the deserted streets. Some he 
knew—captains and workers, bound for their 
polling-places. They passed seriously, anxiously. 
The very air seemed to breathe suspense and 
doubt. 

In the little back room Jimmy found Donovan, 
three lawyers, and five men of stalwart propor- 


71 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

tions who did not look like lawyers. They 
smoked and yawned. 

“Better be on your way, alderman,” said Dono¬ 
van, “car’s waitin’. Thirty pollin’-places to visit, 
y’ know. Begin up-town, with your own place, 
an’ get your vote in—then work down. Keep on 
goin’—and call up here every two hours. An’ 
don’t forget the seegars for the workers! Raf¬ 
ferty’s waitin’ for yer outside. He’ll go along.” 

“All right,” said Jimmy, and he set off on the 
long day’s round of visits to all the thirty polling- 
places. As he went out the door the telephone 
rang, and he heard Donovan saying: “Trouble 
in the tenth? Ketcham quit? All right—five 
men an’ a lawyer’ll be there in ten minutes.” It 
was six o’clock. The polls were open. 

At the polling-place of the tenth election dis¬ 
trict, in Carmine Street, fifty men stood in line 
outside the barber-shop and a dozen inside. In 
the pocket of each man there rested a pink sample 
ballot, marked with a cross in the circle under the 
crab at the upper left-hand corner. For those 
were the days of party columns, when a single 
cross under the emblem would cast a straight vote 
for the whole party ticket. If that had been the 
only cross on the pink ballots there might have 
been no trouble. But down at the foot of the 
sheet, in the second column, that was topped by 


72 


Callahan of Carmine Street 


the pigeon, there was another cross. It was 
smaller, and it stood opposite the name “James 
Van Tassel.” So there was trouble! 

The barber-shop was crowded and in bad 
humor as the polls opened. Ketcham was absent. 
But Kenna was there, and so was Ryan himself. 
The booths were in place and the clerks and the 
inspectors at their posts at the ballot-box and 
table, ready with the ballots and the big flat 
books. Besides the dozen men waiting in line 
inside there were twice as many standing about, 
and ugliness was written over the face of every 
one of them. As the first man in line received 
his white official ballot and stepped to the booth, 
he took a pink sample ballot from his pocket. 

“Hey, whadda ya doin’?” came a voice from 
the hangers-on. 

“Hand over that pink ballot!” 

“Them ballots don’t go here!” 

The voices were louder, and coming thick and 
fast. The man with the ballots turned around 
and stood pat, his feet apart. 

“I ain’t goin’ to use the pink one,” he said. 
“Wouldn’t be counted if I did. Just brought it in 
for a reminder. I got a right to do that under 
the law, an’ you know it.” 

“Can’t do it,” said Kenna, “nor any o’ the rest 
o’ youse.” He looked along the line of voters. 


73 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

Then Ryan planted his big form in front of the 
man with the pink ballot, and Kenna, who was 
nearly as big, was beside him. Ryan’s red face 
was working with anger. “Look-a here, Calla¬ 
han, I stood this foolin’ long enough,” he said 
thickly. “I’m goin’ to be alderman here, an’ I 
ain’t goin’ to stand no more nonsense. I’m on to 
yer tricks—every one of them men is Crowbars” 
—he waved at the long line—“an’ I know you’ve 
lined ’em up for that young what’s-his-name. But 
they ain’t goin’ to bring them pink ballots in here 
—see?” He thrust his head toward Callahan’s. 
The Crowbars felt of their pockets and looked 
mildly interested. 

Then something happened. Callahan said 
nothing as he put the pink ballot back in his 
pocket and laid the white one carefully on a table. 
He looked Ryan in the eye for perhaps a second. 
Then he let go a straight, clean left that landed 
squarely on Ryan’s jaw. The big man swayed 
backward, tottered, and fell heavily to the floor. 
As he fell Callahan caught Kenna with a right 
hook to the ear that sent him hurtling toward the 
wall. The barber turned white and began to 
tremble. The Crowbars stood pat, but their 
faces showed their appreciation of Callahan’s 
workmanship. The polling-place was silent for 


74 


Callahan of Carmine Street 

the first time. Then Callahan took his ballots and 
went quietly into the booth and voted. As he 
went out the door to the sidewalk the barber-shop 
was as quiet as a country churchyard. Only the 
barber, in the corner, was splashing a little as he 
applied his best witch-hazel to Ryan and Kenna, 
reclining in the barber’s big chairs. And when 
the five men and the lawyer arrived, breathless, 
a few minutes later, a dozen Crowbars had voted, 
and the rest w’ere on their way—with the pink 
ballots. The trouble in the tenth was over. 

When the long day came to its end, and the 
polls had closed, at five o'clock, Jimmy made for 
the club-house in Twenty-third Street. In the 
back room he found Donovan, two old men, and 
a telephone, enveloped in thick layers of tobacco- 
smoke. Outside, the first horns were heading for 
Broadway, their raucous blasts intermingled with 
rattles and bells. Otherwise there was silence. 
Donovan turned to Jimmy. 

“Know anybody named Callahan in Carmine 

Street?" 

Jimmy thought a moment. “I don’t think so," 
he answered. “Oh, yes, I do. There was a 
laborer in Washington Square by that name, but 
I don’t remember where he lives. He did a 
rather nice thing that I happened to see, a few 


75 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

weeks ago, and I told the commissioner about it. 
I think it stopped the commissioner from trans¬ 
ferring him to another park.” 

Donovan’s face was impassive but his eyes were 
like live coals. 

“Seen him since?” he asked intently. 

“No.” 

Donovan relapsed into silence. The two old 
men began to talk over the Hayes-Tilden cam¬ 
paign, and the smoke grew thicker. Jimmy 
opened a letter, wearily, that Donovan had 
handed him. As he started to read, he turned 
quickly over to the signature, then read again, 
eagerly, from the beginning. It was just a well- 
wishing note, but it was signed by Miss Sophia 
Skeffington. 

“My dear Mr. Van Tassel,” it read. “This 
note will reach you to-day, I hope. That is why 
it is addressed to you at your political club. May 
you win, and win splendidly! It would be fine if 
more of our young men would do what you are 
doing. I wish I could vote for you—perhaps 
some day they will let us women vote—who 
knows? 

“In the meantime, good luck! If you are not 
too worn out in the morning, my niece and I 


76 


Callahan of Carmine Street 

would be delighted to hear of your experiences. 
She joins me in heartiest good wishes. 

Sincerely yours, 

Sophia Skeffington. 

“P. S.—We are leaving for the Berkshires in 
the afternoon, to be gone until Thanksgiving.” 

Jimmy put the little note from another world 
into his pocket. They waited. Then the tele¬ 
phone rang—ah, the first returns! It was six- 
thirty. 

“All right,” said Donovan, “go ahead. Twen¬ 
tieth district. No, cut that out. Gimme the vote 
on alderman—send the rest by messenger—I 
want to keep this wire open. Ryan, ninety. All 
right. Van Tassel, two hundred and forty. That 
right? Repeat it. All right. Good work, Bur¬ 
ton. That’s good.” He hung up the receiver 
with a snap. 

“Your own election district in first, alderman,” 
he said. “Good beginning.” 

In the big room in front men were beginning 
to come in for the returns. A blackboard hung 
on the wall, chalked off like a checker-board, with 
a square for each of the thirty election districts, 
and for each candidate, from mayor down to 


77 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

alderman. When they checked up the figures 
from the twentieth, there was a shout. 

“He’ll win, he’ll win!” a voice cried. 

But Donovan waited. 

One by one the districts came in, some for Van 
Tassel, some for Ryan. Now one man would 
lead in the totals, now the other. It was still a 
ding-dong race. From time to time Donovan 
would send messengers to “trouble spots” in the 
district. Outside in the big room the crowd grew, 
and waited. The good results drew forth wild 
yells, the others silence. But no one went away. 
Never had there been such a race in the old dis¬ 
trict—it was a fight for the gods! 

Finally, every district was on the board but the 
tenth. It was nine o’clock. And Ryan was in 
the lead in the totals by thirty votes. The front 
room was an uproar. “Tenth—where’s the 
tenth?” they shouted. “Give us the tenth!” But 
the tenth had not come in. In the back room, 
Donovan, with tight lips, sat and sweated. The 
little room was full now. Half of the captains 
had come in, the count over in their own districts, 
and they stood packed together and silent. Jimmy 
stood in the corner, torn asunder within but cheer¬ 
ful on the surface. He had done his best. “Tenth 
oughta be in,” muttered Donovan. “Baker’s down 
there.” Long ago he had sent Big Bill and a 


78 


Callahan of Carmine Street 

dozen picked men with him to the tenth to watch 
the count. 

Then there came, suddenly, a stir and a rush in 
the hall as a big man with gray hair and mous¬ 
tache shouldered his heavy frame through the 
waiting crowd. “Give us the figures!” yelled 
those who waited. But Big Bill pushed through 
to the back room without a word. As he caught 
his breath Donovan looked up, his hands tremb¬ 
ling. 

“Got the figures, Bill?” There was an intaking 
of breath through the room, then quiet. 

“Right here, chief,” said Bill, pulling a piece 
of paper from his pocket. 

“Read ’em.” 

“A’ right.” Bill bent over the paper. You 
could hear a pin drop. 

“Ryan, one-fifty-two. Van Tassel—” Bill 
looked more closely. “Wait a minute.” You 
could cut the agony with a knife. “Oh, here it is. 
Van Tassel, two-twenty-two. Van Tassel’s ma¬ 
jority, seventy.” The tenth was in. And Ryan’s 
lead of thirty had been transformed into a Van 
Tassel victory by forty votes—by an eyelash! 

Then—but some things can be seen but not 
described. The little back room was a madhouse 
of shouts, laughter, numbness, hysterics. There 
was shaking of hands, and slapping of backs, with 


79 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

Van Tassel in the middle of it all. There were 
sighs of purely physical pain. And the big room 
in front was worse. “Van Tassel wins by forty 
votes! Carries the district by forty! Wins by 
forty! Forty! Forty!” The whole place was 
mad. Only Donovan sank back weakly in his 
chair. He wiped the cold sweat from his brow. 
“By forty votes,” he murmured, “by—forty— 
votes.” Outside the horns were blowing in 
cracked, hoarse tones. 

When all but the last few had finally left the 
club, Big Bill turned to Jimmy, his face still aglow 
with delight. - 

“Well, how d' yer feel, alderman?” he asked 
for the twentieth time. 

“I think—I just feel—sort of tired,” Jimmy 
said weakly, with a little smile. 

Bill gave him a sharp look. “Rafferty!” he 
called. “Take the alderman home to bed!” 

When Donovan and Big Bill finally parted, 
under the lamp-post at the corner, Big Bill 
summed up again. “It was just that one favor 
he done Callahan,” he said; “I got the whole 
story from Kenna. It was the favor brought out 
the Crowbars. With Callahan president o’ the 
club? Well, I guess ! An’ it won’t hurt Callahan 
any—he was agin us on every one but Van Tas¬ 
sel—always been agin us, reg’lar, till this year, 


80 


Callahan of Carmine Street 

an’ always will be, I guess. But now they’re 
afraid of him. They gotta save his job! Ken- 
na’s been to headquarters about it, with his leader, 
a’ready. Got a lacin’ at the same time ’bout put¬ 
tin’ up a big bum like Ryan!” Big Bill laughed. 

“I’d wait a day or two ’fore y’ tell the aider- 
man,” said Donovan. “Wise him up gradual. 
He don’t know how it all happened yet.” 

“A’ right, chief.” 

It was late the next morning when Jimmy 
swung into Washington Square from his walk 
down Fifth Avenue. As he turned toward the 
Skeffingtons’ house he saw a familiar figure in 
brown overalls near the fence in the square, with 
pike and sack, picking up things. He hurried 
across and put out his hand. 

“Hello, Mr. Callahan,” he said, “glad to see 
you again!” 

“Hello, alderman!” said the laborer, “con¬ 
gratulations!” They shook hands. “Little close, 
wasn’t it?” continued Callahan, eyeing Van Tas¬ 
sel narrowly. 

“Yes, it was,” replied Jimmy quietly. “Well, 
I’m glad it’s over—what a siege it was! You 
can be glad you don’t have to go campaigning! 
Remember what the commissioner said—‘Keep 
out of politics’?” Jimmy laughed. “Have you 
been good and minded him?” 


81 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

Callahan looked as though he had seen a ghost. 
His jaw dropped and his head swam. Then he 
realized. 

“Er—yes, alderman—I kept out,” he stam¬ 
mered—“pretty nearly out!” 

“That’s good—see you again soon!” 

Jimmy turned and walked swiftly toward the 
Skeffingtons’. “Glad he didn’t run any risks,” he 
said to himself. 

But Callahan stood staring. Suddenly he 
rubbed a bruised hand against his overalls, rue¬ 
fully, and then another. He looked down to see 
if the hands were really there. Finally, as he 
started off to pick up some more things, he saw 
Jimmy disappear within the Skeffingtons’ front 
door. Then he began to smile. He was thinking 
of a tableau that had nothing to do with politics— 
perhaps even of some little tableau of his own, 
long gone by. And the sparrows that flitted 
ahead of him, in short little safety-first flights, 
heard him humming, reminiscently and apropos 
of nothing at all: 

“Sweet—Rosie*—O’Grady, 

She’s my little rose.” 

As he came to “rose,” he emphasized it with a 
drive of his pike into a piece of loose paper. 

“She’s my steady lay-dee, 

Most every one knows.” 


82 



Callahan of Carmine Street 

Callahan plugged a cigarette-box, hard. 

“Soon we will be married, 

Then how happy we’ll be. 

For I love sweet Rosie O’Grady-dee, 

And Rosie O’Grady—loves me.” 

Swish! went the pike into last night’s Dispatch, 
abroad on the lawn. 

And then the sparrows flew suddenly up from 
the ground and into the nearest tree, the whole 
flock together, in great alarm, for Callahan had 
dropped both pike and sack on the lawn, and, 
with hands on his hips and head back, he was 
laughing, laughing as though he would never stop. 

“Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha!” 

Callahan was still laughing. 


83 


GARRY’S CHRISTMAS 

I N the stuffy little back room of the district 
club in Twenty-third Street, Alderman Van 
Tassel, with shoulders hunched under a solitary 
gas jet, bent over the thick pamphlet that lay on 
the desk before him. The pamphlet was brand 
new and bound in blue, but the desk was old and 
shabby, hacked and kicked and stained until its 
yellow polish had relapsed into a neutral smear 
of plain chipped wood. For thirty years—ever 
since the days of Blaine and Cleveland—the bat¬ 
tered desk had been the springboard of youthful 
dives into local politics; for thirty years it had 
been the chopping block for local political heads 
grown old and weak. 

But the Honorable James Van Tassel, now four 
months an alderman, knew or cared little about 
this. He was in the first splash of his own po¬ 
litical plunge, and hard at it. Young, comely, the 
choice of the district, what should he reck of old 
ghosts, old hopes? 

A step sounded in the outer room, and a loud 
voice echoed through the hall. 

“Jimmy, yer here?” 


34 


Garry’s Christmas 

“Yes,” came the alderman’s cheery response. 
“That you, Bill?” 

“Yeah, that’s me.” The big man approached 
heavily through the hall and sank wearily into the 
big chair beside the old desk. As he tilted back 
his hat, the shock of thick grayish hair, and the 
keen gray eyes and heavy moustache showed a 
man of sixty, in sharp contrast to the youthful 
novice before him. His bony frame bulked large 
against the alderman’s slender contours as he 
settled into the big chair. The district called him 
Big Bill with reason—Big Bill Baker, for thirty 
years a messenger in the service of the city gov¬ 
ernment, and a power in the district. He turned 
to the alderman. 

“Whatcha readin’ so hard?” 

“Oh, a pamphlet about a new kind of teaching 
in the schools—or, rather, out of the schools. 
They want to send teachers into the homes of 
foreign fathers and mothers who can’t speak 
English, and teach them at home. It seems they 
can’t coax them out to night school—some of 
them, anyhow—bashful, I guess.” 

“Bashful nuthin’,” rejoined Big Bill. “The ol’ 
man’s tired from workin’ all day, an’ the ol’ 
woman’s busy with the kids—that’s why they stay 
home.” 

“Well, anyhow, they want to help Americanize 


85 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

them, and the first thing is to teach them the 
language. The plan is to collect a dozen mothers 
with their babies in one of the mother’s rooms in 
a tenement house; then a teacher goes there, in 
the daytime, and teaches them right there under 
their own roof.” 

“That’s right,” nodded Bill. “Can’t leave the 
babies. When do they do all this?” 

“Next month, if we give them the money. It’s 
before the Board of Aldermen to-morrow— 
special meeting—and I’m going to speak for it.” 

Bill looked indulgent. Jimmy straightened up. 
“But don’t you think it’s a good thing?” he chal¬ 
lenged. 

“Yeah—it’s all right—you’ve got the right 
hunch, Jimmy. Give ’em a vote. But don’t get 
mussed up over it—take it easy! It’ll be a long 
time ’fore they all talk English—poor boobs. 
Kids go ter school and grow up Americans, an’ 
the ol’ folks don’t ever get wise at all, lots of ’em 
—die before they talk anythin’ but that foreign 
jabber. An’ then the kids make fun o’ the ol’ 
people w’at ’a’ been workin’ their heads off ter 
give the young uns a start—get ashamed o’ their 
own fathers and mothers. I tell yer it’s tough.” 

Jimmy was silent. 

“Well, here’s what I come about,” Bill resumed, 
more briskly, “seein’ you’re so busy with the 


86 


Garry’s Christmas 

foreigners. Y’know the Italian down in Four¬ 
teenth Street, that shines shoes outside o’ Fla¬ 
herty’s? An’ Mother Hale, that sells papers on 
the same corner? She’s American! Yeah, I 
thoughtcha would—everybody knows them two. 
I come by there this mornin’, an’ Mother Hale’s 
license runs out termorrer—wants a renewal 
application blank this afternoon if yer can do it— 
says the inspector’s been botherin’ her. The 
Italian’s runs out too—she asked me ter tell yer 
about both of ’em. If they get the blanks before 
six, Flaherty can put his name on, then y’can fix 
up your end here tonight, an’ they’ll go downtown 
in the mornin’ fer the license. Can yer stop by 
there on yer way home?” 

“Yes, I can do that,” said Jimmy. “I’ll look 
out for it, Bill.” 

When the big man had gone, Jimmy put aside 
the pamphlet, turned out the light and set out for 
Fourteenth Street. He looked over his shoulder 
as he left the club-house. It was not much of a 
club-house—just the first floor in one of the old 
high-stoop brownstones that still filled most of 
the block. Inside it was musty; outside, dreary. 
A pole without a flag protruded from between the 
front windows. There was an old sign over the 
door. But back of the drab front lay a nerve 
centre of New York—now quiet, now throbbing, 


87 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

but sensitive to the slightest play of the fitful 
breeze that betokens the people’s will or whim, 
or rage. 

At the Fourteenth Street corner there was bed¬ 
lam. The homegoing crowds that swarmed from 
all directions were enough to put the stamp of 
lunacy on the place. But, more than that, it was 
two days come Christmas, and snappy, tingling, 
Christmas weather to boot! There was a flick 
in the cheek and a spring in the heel for every one 
of the hurrying thousands. They bore parcels, 
and holly, and everything else that was useless— 
but meant Christmas! The cars clanged, the 
trucks roared, and, over all, the bells of the red- 
caped Salvation Army lassies kept ringing as 
though there were indeed great news abroad! 
Mother Hale was selling papers as fast as she 
could hand them out. 

“Hello, Mother Hale!” called Jimmy. They 
were already cronies, and the alderman would 
often go a block out of his way to get his even¬ 
ing paper, with the badinage that was sure to 
accompany it, from the plump little woman with 
the white hair. 

“Oh, it’s the alderman!” A broad grin spread 
over the weatherbeaten face under the felt hat. 
“Wait a minute now, till I get my specs.” 

She fumbled about the back of the flimsy little 


88 


Garry’s Christmas 

stand. A wooden sign above it bore the legend, 
“Susan Ross Hale. Established 1888.” Ever 
since her husband had taken to his chair, twenty- 
odd years ago, “Mother Hale,” as all the neigh¬ 
borhood knew her, had sold her papers there, rain 
or shine, summer and winter. Her face was the 
color of a walnut, but the black eyes sparkled as 
brightly as the checks of her blue gingham apron 
—and she kept the little home together. 

“There, now,” she breathed as she adjusted the 
specs and looked up and down the printed blank 
that Jimmy handed her. “There—I’ll get Fla¬ 
herty when he comes out at six, and I’ll bring it 
to the club this evening—yes? That’s a good 
boy—an’ when do I see the pretty girl again? 
Or don’t she like ye any more? Sure, a pinch 
in the cheek wouldn’t hurt her any-” 

Jimmy was laughing, but plainly alarmed at 
what suggestions might follow. Mother Hale’s 
rule was to attack at once, all along the Fine. 
She always won. 

“All the evening papers,” said Jimmy in sur¬ 
render. 

When she had filled his arms, she motioned 
toward the boot-black stand. It was not really a 
stand. It was just two old raised chairs, although 
the smudged pasteboard sign read bravely, 
“Ladies and Gents Shoe Shine Parlor.” The 


89 



Van Tassel and Big Bill 

leather seats were patched with paper, and a 
doubtful collection of old rags hung over the 
rungs. A pile of broken umbrellas leaned against 
one chair, awaiting mending in odd moments; a 
broom stood against the other. Between the two 
rested an orange-hued bottle of shoe polish. And 
in front was the Italian, bent over and brushing 
hard on the first of four waiting shoes. 

“Hey, Garry!” called Mother Hale. 

The parlor magnate looked up, with brush 
poised for the next stroke. His face was even 
darker than Mother Hale’s, and he, too, had 
white hair. All the rest was blue overalls over 
blue shirt, faded and blended, for the knees were 
patched with parts of the shirt; that was Garry’s 
uniform, the year ’round. 

“Come here a minute!” He came over, brush 
in hand, with a backward look of helplessness at 
the waiting customers. Mother Hale was in com¬ 
mand, at this corner. 

“Why do you call him Garry?” Jimmy in¬ 
quired in an undertone. He knew the bootblack 
only by sight, as a background for Mother Hale. 

“Oh, that’s short for Garibaldi—somebody 
said he looked like Garibaldi once, and he was so 
proud we always call him that.” 

Jimmy handed the other license blank to Gari- 


90 


Garry’s Christmas 

baldi. “Bring it around to-night, and I’ll sign it,” 
he said. 

“Yeah—signa de blank—getta license—inspec¬ 
tor, whoo!” Garry threw out both arms, as 
though he were routing an army of enemy inspec¬ 
tors. He was just five feet high. Then he went 
back to the waiting shoes. His dark skin wrinkled 
into a curious look of secret amusement as he 
bent over them. 

“Good bye, Mother Hale!” said Jimmy. “See 
you to-night.” 

“G’bye, Alderman—take care o’ that pretty 
girl, now—don’t let-” 

But Jimmy had fled, with his armful of papers 
hugged to his ribs. Mother Hale chuckled as she 
handed out the “wuxtries” to the homegoers, both 
arms working, first right, then left, as though she 
were addressing a punching bag. “What a big 
boy,” she sighed, “just a big boy!” 

When Jimmy went up the high steps of the dis¬ 
trict club that evening, a group of the sidewalk 
folk roused themselves from the rails and fol¬ 
lowed him in. The big room was already lined 
with the standkeepers. They filled the camp 
chairs along the walls with a solid human wains- 
coating. Above them the framed photos of old 
leaders, old aldermen and old chowder party 
ensembles in white caps, ranged to the ceiling. An 


91 



Van Tassel and Big Bill 

American flag and a blue marching standard hung 
on one side of the room; on the other, the dust- 
covered glass doors of a lonely book case dis¬ 
closed glimpses of the Congressional Record, the 
Annual Reports of the Smithsonian Institution, 
and the Proceedings of the Board of Aldermen, 
in thick, threatening volumes of leather. 

Jimmy nodded to the district’s pinochle council, 
hard at work at the round table in the rear, said 
“Hello!” to a knot of district captains, and sat 
down at a desk near the door. The stuffy back 
room—that shadowy holy of holies—was re¬ 
served for Donovan, the district leader, in the 
evenings. Jimmy was only the alderman. 

“Well, who was here first?” he called out, 
cheerily. Every standkeeper in the room came 
forward. 

“Oh, no,” he laughed. “Sit down again, all of 
you—I’ll go from left to right.” He looked the 
convention over. They were the sidewalk folk, 
sure enough! Men and women; the blind, the 
aged and the crippled; Italians, Russians, Greeks, 
and “Polaks”; a crutch here and a cough there; 
three dark-eyed cherubs with a fat woman in the 
corner—what a world it was! 

Jimmy picked out a blind man, then another, 
and signed their papers first. He gathered in the 
crutches and the coughs, and sent them on their 


92 


Garry’s Christmas 

way. Then he saw a smiling ampleness in a black 
shawl come in the door. 

“Hello, Mother Hale!” he called. “Won’t 
you please come over here? You’re next!” He 
rose as she sat down beside him. He signed the 
wdiite sheet with the sense of impending attack on 
the usual subject—for there was, in fact, a “pretty 
girl.” She lived down in the old red and gray 
row in Washington Square, and her name was 
Sally—to be exact and properly formal, Miss 
Sally Skeffington, of Washington Square, North 
—the perplexing, puzzling “Sally in our Alley” 
of Jimmy’s hopelessly floundering devotion. And 
the worst of it, or the best of it, was that Mother 
Hale, who had several times met them as they 
passed her corner together, knew all about it. 
She never failed to aid and abet the consumma¬ 
tion that Jimmy so devoutly wished, in the first 
words that occurred to her. And he never could 
tell what turn her fancy would take next, in her 
street corner matchmaking—she was high explo¬ 
sive ! 

But Mother Hale was silent as he wrote in his 
name. “Good night,” she said, as he rose and 
handed her the paper, “thank you—and a Merry 
Christmas to you, Alderman—Merry Christ¬ 
mas!” She bundled out of the door, her walnut 
face aglow with her smile, a Santa Claus in her- 


93 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

self. Susan Ross Hale would now go to the neat 
little room at the head of the four flights of stairs, 
and, until the next day’s work began, she would 
be nurse, to the other “big boy,” in the chair. 

As Jimmy neared the end of the long line, he 
congratulated himself on the smoothness with 
which the evening’s business had gone off. It was 
a good deal of a business, he had found—this 
granting of licenses—where none could be granted 
without the consent of the alderman of the dis¬ 
trict. With a ready consent for the needy, he had 
a wary eye for the other kind—and it took time 
to tell the difference. Especially had he learned 
to deal directly with the sidewalk people, and 
keep clear of go-betweens—those gentry who for 
sweet charity spoke glibly for the bootblack who 
understood no English, and then collected from 
him later, on the plea that the alderman had 
demanded a price for his consent. Sometimes, 
in other districts, the alderman had! 

It was late, and Big Bill was standing by in the 
role of usher. He would summon the next in 
line, settle disputes of priority, and send the stand- 
keepers on their way when the papers were signed. 

“There, it’s all right,” he said to a doubting 
Greek, “don’tcha see he signed it?” He pointed 
to the signature. “Go ahead, now!” He must 


94 


Garry’s Christmas 

have saved a solid hour of colloquy and explana¬ 
tion. 

The Greek was followed by a small man with 
a dirty collar, who needed a shave and a pair of 
eyes that sat farther apart. He looked intently 
at the alderman as he shoved the white sheet at 
him. Jimmy read the signature and looked up. 

“You’re not Goldstone,” he said. “I know 
him.” 

“Yes, All-mun, I’m his cousin,” replied the 
small man rapidly. “He’s sick.” 

“You’re his cousin?” Jimmy looked at him 
closely, and gradually he remembered the face. 
The last time it had been clean shaven, with a 
clean collar, and the conversation had been such 
that he had not expected to see it again. But 
there could be no mistaking the beady, close-set 
eyes. Jimmy frowned, and started to rise. Big 
Bill began to take notice. 

“All’mun—just a minute-” the go-between 

gave the alderman a crafty, confidential look. 
Then he looked over his shoulder and back again, 
quickly. His left hand, which had been closed, 
opened slightly as he thrust it forward a few 
inches. Jimmy glanced down and saw a minute 
wad of half-disclosed dirty bills, with a figufe 
“20” in sight on top. The close-set eyes fixed 
themselves on Jimmy’s face. 


95 



Van Tassel and Big Bill 

“Oh!” Jimmy was tired to begin with. Now 
he was suddenly nauseated. That anyone could 
so understand him! He had thought to be spared 
this sort of thing. He stood up uncertainly in 
the first surprise of his disgust. The hand came 
forward a few inches more. Jimmy’s face began 
to work—he was losing control, and he knew it. 
Then he lost it, altogether. He gulped, queerly, 
as he stood for a second, staring into the beady 
eyes. He was trembling. The grafter stepped 
back a pace. With a sudden movement Jimmy let 
go a long arm to the back of a dirty neck, clutched 
it with a grip of steel and, shaking the thing as a 
dog would a rat, swung it through the door, across 
the stoop, and out over the steps to the sidewalk 
below. There was a thud, then a groan. 

As the sprawling form started to lift itself 
painfully from the flagstones, whimpering, Jimmy 
turned away with a new disgust. He went inside, 
and sank back heavily into his chair. But from 
without he heard a big voice booming joyfully 
from the stoop. 

“There, yer bum,” Big Bill was chortling, “get 
up if yer can! Then get out o’ here, quick, ’fore I 
break every bone in yer body! An’ don’t come 
back or I’ll croak yer dead as a mackerel—an’ 
that goes! Makin’ a crack like that to a straight 
man—on yer way now!” 


96 


Garry’s Christmas 

A moment later Bill returned. “Laid him out 
nice, Jimmy,” he said with quiet admiration. “He 
won’t bother yer no more. I’ll be goin’ now. 
There’s not many left, an’ I gotta see Donovan 
’fore he gets away.” Bill moved off toward 
the back room before Jimmy could reply. 

The next applicant was another small man, 
who was younger, but he, too, was unknown to the 
alderman. He wore glasses, was quietly dressed, 
and looked like a man of books. He had been an 
interested spectator of the recent exit. Jimmy 
looked at him curiously but wearily. “The 
blank?” he inquired. 

“There’s the blank, Alderman, but I think I’ll 
just leave it with you,” said the little man mildly. 

Jimmy glanced at the white sheet; then he 
stopped and looked again, more closely. The 
blank was signed; and it applied for renewal of 
the license to Garibaldi’s shoe-shine parlor at the 
Fourteenth Street corner. 

“But you’re not Garry,” said Jimmy in amaze¬ 
ment. Nor did the little man look like a go- 
between. 

“No, I’m his son,” was the reply. “He’s away 
to-night.” Then, as he caught Jimmy’s incredu¬ 
lous look, he repeated, “I think I’ll just leave it 
with you—perhaps you could give it to him to- 


97 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

morrow. Then you could do it yourself.” He 
started toward the door. 

“But, you—what’s your business?” Jimmy 
called after him, greatly puzzled. The briber had 
been a “cousin”; this “son” he could not make out 
at all. 

“I’m afraid you wouldn’t believe me if I told 
you,” replied the “son,” as he went out of the 
door, more hastily. 

Jimmy was upset. He put the blank in his 
pocket vaguely, as he determined to see Garry on 
the morrow and unravel this new mystery. As 
he walked home to the big house on Murray Hill, 
he churned over again in his mind the incident of 
the briber. Then his thoughts went back to the 
Garibaldi blank in his pocket, and his suspicions 
were renewed. He pictured the contrast of the 
old bootblack and his “son”—the story was absurd 
on the face of it! He was still tossing and 
twisting among the cousins and sons of the side¬ 
walk folk when he finally fell wearily asleep. 

Alderman Van Tassel was discouraged when 
he left the City Hall next day and began his walk 
uptown, to the district. In the first place, it was 
growing late, and he had Christmas shopping still 
to do; but the walk would take only twenty 
minutes more than the subway, and in place of 
that start-and-stop tube of suffocation he could 


98 


Garry’s Christmas 

stride up the free reaches of Broadway and drive 
out some of the mental cobwebs that accumulate 
in aldermanic deliberations. It had been a long 
meeting, and the school appropriation had been 
defeated. That was the second and strongest 
cause of the alderman’s discouragement. His 
speech had been laughed at. “Why don’tcha put 
a high school in every flat?” one of his colleagues 
had interrupted. “A lot o’ langwidge they’ll learn 
out o’ them pots and pans—a bowl o’ spaghetti’d 
do ’em more good!” The room had rocked to 
the derisive laughter that followed this attack; 
and the roll-call had buried the subject beyond 
hope of revival. Jimmy began his Broadway 
retreat gloomily enough. 

When he turned into Bleecker Street, it was 
beginning to snow—a fine, sifting vanguard of 
small flakes that promised a night of storm before 
the silent army of the skies would be on the field 
in all its strength. He turned up his collar and 
made the rounds of the labyrinth of old streets 
that lie west of Jefferson Market. The grocer, 
the florist, the butcher, the baker—and even the 
candlestick maker, where the festooning of tiny 
spruces was concerned—they all came in for a 
call. There were baskets to be filled, addresses 
to be repeated with care, and deliveries to be made 
without fail—that night or in the morning. It 

99 



> > > 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

took time, but it was all done in the district, and 
there were little homes of the sidewalk folk and 
others that would wake to a Christmas morning 
such as they had never imagined would come. 
When it was done, the alderman laid it aside in 
his mind as a secret to be kept, but he felt better 
and it seemed more like Christmas Eve, when 
he finally turned north toward Fourteenth Street. 
Now, he could tackle with better spirit the dis¬ 
agreeable inquiry that lay ahead. He had had no 
time to investigate the bootblack in the morning 
—he could make a start now, and perhaps, even 
get to the bottom of it. And then—his thoughts 
turned to Washington Square! 

As he struck into Fourteenth Street and looked 
across to Mother Hale’s corner, he stopped at 
what he saw. The hurrying crowds, the clanging 
cars, and the ringing bells, with the red and green 
holly, the white parcels and the little volleys of 
laughter popping out among them, were much the 
same as the night before. The hosts of inquisi¬ 
tive snowflakes that came sifting out of the skies 
so determinedly, had already softened the city’s 
angles with their white quilting. They had 
softened the city’s noises too—the little flakes. 
They almost turned the busy corner into a Christ¬ 
mas card of their own. But Mother Hale was 
handing out the papers in the same old way, left 


100 


Garry’s Christmas 

and right, with a sturdy jacking up of the wagons 
from downtown for their lateness with the five- 
star editions, and a Christmas quip for every old 
customer that came her way, as she shook the 
snow from her old hat. Flaherty’s saloon stood 
unchanged, gleaming and expectant. The chairs 
of the “shoe-shine parlor,” empty and snow- 
covered, were backed into the shadows of the 
brick wall, with the orange shoe polish bottle 
between them, still shining through the gathering 
dusk—a glowing proof of the industry that was, 
before it snowed. 

Yes, it was all as it should be, on Christmas 
Eve in New York, except for Garibaldi. He was 
at his post, in the same old blue overalls, with the 
same old faded patches at the knees, but was ever 
such a circus to be countenanced from a Four¬ 
teenth Street bootblack? He was ring-master of 
the corner, with all the command of his position! 

There were twenty feet of sidewalk in the ring, 
with a hydrant for hurdle, while the laughing on¬ 
lookers formed the encircling barrier. Within 
were the performers, a dozen of the dirtiest, hap¬ 
piest little ragamuffins that even Flaherty’s corner 
had ever produced—and Garry was surely after 
them! With upraised broom he was pursuing 
them, one after another, around and about the 
hydrant in all directions at once. They would 


101 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

scatter into the snow like the spokes of a wheel, 
as the broom swung clumsily through the air, only 
to converge again, pulling and snatching at the 
patched overalls, before the beleaguered Gari¬ 
baldi could so much as get the broom off the side¬ 
walk once more. Sometimes he would run after 
them in the most ludicrous mimicry of a bow- 
legged man, and they would laugh themselves 
weak, so that he might even tag some little shaver 
on the back. At intervals he would rest, warily, 
and then that look of secret amusement that he 
always wore would break into a tired grin. 

As the game went on, Jimmy watched it until 
he began to laugh himself. The little blue figure 
had a way of sprawling about so comically that 
no one could long resist its appeal. If Jimmy had 
known that the game went on every day, with the 
same players, whenever kids were out of school 
and rain or snow stopped shoe shining, he would 
have resolved to become a regular visitor. But 
he must get back to the business in hand; he began 
to feel a more bitter resentment against the sort 
of rascal who would swindle this old bootblack 
out of any of his hard-earned nickels and dimes. 

He started to cross the street, and then stood 
still, his frame stiffening with suspense as the 
horror of what he saw came into his eyes. Garry 
was in the act of another sortie, with broom raised 


102 


Garry’s Christmas 

and children scampering, but this time he was 
plunging toward the street. As he reached the 
curb, he tripped, started to fall forward, and then, 
as he suddenly saw the big mail truck bearing 
down on him, he twisted into a clumsy contortion 
in a frantic effort to recover his balance. It was 
too late. He fell forward, and the speeding truck 
caught him midway as it roared by, then flung him 
aside, roughly and with all its force, as a man will 
brush away a fly. The blow threw him back 
against the hydrant, and, with arm up as though 
in defense, he slipped down at its side and sud¬ 
denly lay still. 

Jimmy saw the truck go by, then slow up and 
stop, twenty yards beyond. He saw the children 
gather curiously and quietly about the blue form, 
while the onlookers closed in their circle and stood 
over him, blankly. And he saw a glint of crimson 
begin to show against the bootblack’s white hair. 

Then he turned and darted into the store behind 
him. With a feverish fingering of the telephone 
directory’s pages, he dug his fingernail under the 
number, clutched the receiver from its socket, and 
called up the big hospital in Sixteenth Street. 
“Yes, at Fourteenth Street and Polk Avenue, 
northwest corner, Flaherty’s saloon,” he panted, 
“truck accident, man down—looks bad—he can’t 
move. Yes, he’s on the sidewalk. My name and 


103 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

address? Yes!” He ripped off the superfluous 
particulars. “Please hurry!” Then he hung up 
the receiver. It was the quickest ambulance call 
on record. 

When he started for the other side of the street, 
he saw only the silent mass of huddled onlookers, 
standing in the snow and staring with all their 
eyes. They were packed close together, with 
heads straining from side to side, or upward as 
they stood on tiptoe in their determination to miss 
no detail of the free show that offers when a man 
is hurt, in the streets of New York. As new 
arrivals stopped, they became part of the close- 
knit mass, elbowing their way toward its centre, 
lest they miss something. 

“Oh, I say now, stand back!” protested Jimmy 
as he strode into the lump, then swam through it, 
with arms brushing the standees unceremoniously 
to either side as he clove his way to the centre. 
“Stand back, all of you—can’t you give him a 
chance?” The inner ring pushed back a few 
inches, while the newcomers on the edge pushed 
forward as they seized the opportunity of new 
chinks and crannies that came with this slight 
joggling of the mass. Then a brass-buttoned blue- 
coat suddenly waded straight in from the out¬ 
side, the long arms pulling shoulders around and 
pushing chests back, to emphasize the tones of 


104 


Garry’s Christmas 

command that every one could hear. The crowd 
fell back sharply—the cop had come. 

On the sidewalk, next the hydrant, there was 
indeed a free show. A little man in blue overalls 
was lying quietly there, his head propped up in 
the lap of a plump old woman in black who was 
too busy to look about at all. She sat on a pile 
of newspapers, and her weather-tanned face bent 
over her work. Mother Hale was tearing her 
gingham apron into blue strips, and staunching, 
binding, bandaging the long gash in Garry’s head 
whence the blood kept flowing, in a sluggish red 
stream that seemed to have no end. “There, 
quiet now, we’ll soon stop it,” she whispered, 
oblivious to all but her patient. “Ah, that’s bet¬ 
ter.” The sidewalk nurse did her work well. 
Garry’s eyes had opened and were looking vaguely 
upward. 

“Truck—knocka me-” he mumbled. 

“It sure did, Garry,” said Mother Hale gently. 

Then the onlookers’ heads suddenly turned all 
in one direction. Clangity—clang—clang! The 
gong’s insistent warning sounded louder and 
louder, as the ambulance swung around the corner 
and slid swiftly into the curb, by the hydrant. 
Jimmy and the cop stepped to one side as the 
white-jacketed doctor in the visored cap leaped 
down and bent over, his doctor’s eyes searching 


105 



Van Tassel and Big Bill 

through their glasses for every detail that might 
inform. As he looked, he started back, then sud¬ 
denly bent forward again. 

“Oh,” he breathed with sudden emotion. “Ah, 

mio padre—mio povero padre -” He put his 

hand gently on the little bootblack’s shoulder. 
Garry’s eyes looked up incredulously and he tried 
to move; then a queer light came into them and 
he sank back into his nurse’s lap. 

“Giovanni,” he sighed contentedly. 

The doctor unwound Mother Hale’s blue 
strips, bathed the long gash with alcohol, and 
then, with white gauze and bandage, did his work 
so swiftly and withal so tenderly that there were 
little gasps of admiration from the sidewalk clinic, 
and even a grunt of approval from the cop. 
There followed a bad moment with Garry’s arm. 
He winced as the doctor found the break and then 
bound it firmly within the white-bandaged splints 
that came from the rack in the ambulance. 
Finally, the cop and the driver drew out the 
stretcher, very gently placed the little man on it, 
and then thrust him into the ambulance. 

As the doctor swung himself up over the tail¬ 
board and looked back, his eyes met Jimmy’s for 
the first time, and he started, then smiled. Jimmy 
was just staring, as he had for several minutes 
past. 


106 



Garry’s Christmas 

“Are you-?” 

“Yes, Alderman—I am; but you wouldn’t have 
believed me,” he said slowly in that same mild 
way. Jimmy took a step forward and started 
clumsily to put out his hand, when he was met 
with a husky voice, calling weakly from the 
interior. 

“Hey, Ald’man—giva license—gooda man— 
gooda politish-” 

The doctor and the alderman looked at each 
other and began to smile. The voice from the 
stretcher continued, with more vigor, 

“Ah, no hurt—no matter—gimme cigarette— 
for Garry-” 

Then, Mother Hale, standing by the hydrant, 
began to laugh uproariously, and they all joined, 
suddenly relieved. 

“— cigarette — for — Garibaldi,” came the 
husky voice, now more weakly. 

Jimmy hurried a cigarette to the old soldier, 
which the doctor gave to him. “Gooda boy— 
Giovanni,” the voice whispered, “maka doc—no 
maka fun—ol’ man.” Jimmy could just hear the 
words. The doctor was bending over his patient 
again. But his smile had gone. 

The gong clanged and the ambulance whirled 
swiftly and around the corner. Fainter and 
fainter came the rub-a-dub clangor, and then it 


107 





Van Tassel and Big Bill 

could be heard no longer and there was just the 
snow, millions of flakes, coming silently down as 
they covered everything in sight. The sidewalk 
clinic had already vanished. The show was over. 

When the cop had put it all in his notebook 
and stalked away, and Mother Hale had tidied 
up, Jimmy still stayed. 

“But why didn’t he come to the club himself?” 
he asked Mother Hale. “He wasn’t sick—his 
son said he was just ‘away’.” 

Mother Hale looked calculatingly at the aider- 
man before she spoke. 

“That’s Garry’s secret,” she said quietly. “The 
poor feller—y’won’t give him away! He was 
at night school last night—wants to learn English, 
like his son. And he’s proud about it—I’m the 
only one ’round here that knows. He’s a good 
feller—poor Garry—but he’ll never learn. They 
never do—that kind.” 

“And you mean that he made his boy a doctor 
just out of the nickels and dimes from the shoes 
and the old umbrellas?” Jimmy found it hard to 
believe. 

“Sure, an’ he did, an’ why not? He’s the kind 
o’ foreigner that wants to be a good American— 
they ain’t all like Garry!” She paused. “If he 
gets well,” she added quietly. 

Then, as Jimmy’s expression began to change 


108 


Garry’s Christmas 

from unbelief to something else, the newswoman 
suddenly put a hand on each of his broad should¬ 
ers and looked straight into his eyes. “Oh, you 
big boy,” she said, her face all a-grin, “you don’t 
know nothing yet!” Her own eyes began to 
twinkle in a queer way as she dropped her hands 
and turned her face away—and Mother Hale was 
actually—walking away! Or was it more? After 
all, it had been a trying half-hour. 

“Go along now!” she called jerkily over her 
shoulder, as she felt for the gingham apron that 
had gone. “Go along, you, an’ get after that 
pretty girl—an’ Christmas Eve—an’ yer can’t 

make her say-?” The newswoman had 

turned around again, and the round, nut-brown 
face was wrinkled into a roguish grin of pure 
teasing. But Jimmy had already fled. Mother 
Hale had won another easy victory. 

On the way home, Jimmy stopped in front of a 
store as though something had just occurred to 
him. He went inside and telephoned, to a florist 
and then to the cigar counter at his club on Fifth 
Avenue. On second thought, he called up the 
club again, and said something about “Chianti— 
the very best!” And each time he gave the same 
address. It was the hospital in Sixteenth Street. 

When he set forth from his home on Murray 
Hill, after dinner that evening, Jimmy went first 


109 



Van Tassel and Big Bill 

to the hospital in Sixteenth Street. Then, with 
quickened step, he went on to the old red and gray 
house in Washington Square, wherein Miss Sally 
Skeffington would receive his worship in whatever 
fashion might suit her own saucy fancy. When 
he finally left that shrine of uncertainty, it was 
late. And Jimmy was in his usual condition of 
entranced bewilderment, with still that wondering 
query back of it—that he had not yet dared 
resolve into a question. But the last thing he had 
said, this time, was different from his usual con¬ 
fused “good-night.” 

“Yes, it’s only a cut,” he was repeating with 
emphasis, “a bad one, but no fracture. And the 
arm’s bad.” Then suddenly a ring came into his 
voice. “But he’s going to get well! The doctor 
says so! He’s going to get well!” 

As he went by the Washington Arch, gray and 
shadowy in the whirling snow flurries that filled 
the air, the chimes of Grace Church came softly 
over on the east wind, spelling out the old hymn, 
bell after bell, even to the highest note of all. 
He stopped to listen. Oh, yes—he had almost 
forgotten. It was Christmas Eve. 


110 


THOMAS 


W HEN the Upjohns—Mr. and Mrs.— 
steeped in oil and drowned in dollars, came 
up out of Texas for a winter of social celebration 
in New York, they moved into one of the old red 
and gray houses that line the north side of Wash¬ 
ington Square—because Mrs. Upjohn liked it. 

“Regular Rip Van Winkle Row,” she said. 
“So quiet and comfy. We can racket by night and 
sleep by day.” 

But the Upjohns were not alone. Thomas, of 
New York, moved in with them. He was only a 
cat, but he, too, could racket by night and sleep by 
day. His name was indubitably Thomas, and 
with that the genealogist will have to be content. 
Efforts have been made to trace his ancestry, but 
there are no records, of church or family, nor 
even gossip in the neighborhood, to indicate the 
identity of Thomas’s forbears. He was neither 
Angora nor Persian nor pet Siamese—just com¬ 
mon cat, bred in old New York. And he appeared 
out of a clear sky, declaring himself in on the 
Upjohn invasion without credentials or apology. 
From the outset Thomas made himself shame- 


111 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

lessly at home, and constantly he carried on his 
own social campaign. Betimes he waxed prosper¬ 
ous. His leanness changed to sleekness, there 
came more power to his paw, and the white coat 
that set off the black patches on his face and flanks 
carried less and less coal dust in the meshes of its 
pristine purity. There were bursts of song from 
the back fences on the alley that betokened good 
fortune, and the night air was vibrant with the 
wooing of Thomas. 

Yes, those were halcyon days—a Saturnalia of 
fine roast beef ends and good hunting of aristo¬ 
cratic mice in the walls of Washington Square 
North. The black tail with the white tip would 
at times be found standing straight in the air—a 
beacon of appreciation as it followed the lustrous 
yellow eyes about, and even lent itself to an occa¬ 
sional rub against the butler’s leg. It may be 
that Thomas purred at such times, but there is 
no record of any such outbreak; the chances are 
that the more impressionable pussycats of the 
neighborhood have held on to their monopoly of 
that form of audible affection. For it is to be 
remembered that, with all his good fortune, 
Thomas was a personage of reserve, with a cer¬ 
tain dignity masking the wariness that lay behind 
those horizontal whiskers. He was only too 
familiar with the ups and downs of cat life in a 


112 


Thomas 

great city, and he well knew that Upjohns come 
and go, but the crisis of the cat goes on forever. 

In June the blow fell. The Upjohns were ready 
to move. 

“Nice, but out of the way,” said Mrs. Upjohn. 
“Uptown for us. In New York, people move 
once a year, anyhow.” 

The oil man “saw” his wife and raised her. 
“I’m ready,” he answered, “been ready for six 
months. And we’ll keep on moving every day! 
I’ve planned a trip to the Orient—that’s better 
than uptown.” 

So the Upjohns lived out their impression of 
metropolitan restlessness, and moved nervously 
away. They never came back. The white door 
with its shining brass knob was covered up by 
gray boards. The lace curtains disappeared from 
the windows and, one by one, the faded blue 
shades were drawn down, and the old house closed 
its eyes and dozed. In the little front yard the 
grass grew long, and the summer sun that came 
flittering through the trees in the square played 
warmly over the brick face of the sleeping house. 
There was peace again, and rest in Rip Van 
Winkle Row. 

In fact, if it had not been for Thomas, one 
might easily believe that there never had been 
a Texas incursion to disturb the repose of the 


113 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

old row. The Upjohns had left Thomas behind 
—deliberately—for there are plenty of his kind 
in the Orient. When their departure was com¬ 
plete, Thomas moved his headquarters to the 
deserted front stoop. There he would doze, in 
close communion with the spirit of the old house, 
the better part of the long day. With blinking 
memories of the salad days that had gone, he 
resigned himself with becoming philosophy. His 
progress back toward routine starving was 
gradual and dignified. Steadily the patched flanks 
grew leaner, the hunting legs seemed longer, 
and the Thomas jowls with their reconnoitring 
whiskers looked more formidable. But it was an 
orderly retreat. Thomas hunted as he waned; 
he lived off the country, and survived. 

On one occasion he was observed carrying to 
the Upjohn house a six-inch rat, suspended heavily 
from those excellent ivory nippers. His march 
along the north side of the square followed the 
middle of the sidewalk in a straight line, with 
measured tread, and head held high in air. The 
weight and the length of the rat may have caused 
this grandeur of gait, but it was more likely that 
it reflected Thomas’s innate self-respect as a 
self-sustaining citizen. In either event, the two 
pretty young things who suddenly encountered 
the apparition took to their dainty heels in such 


114 


Thomas 

a panic of fright that their screams could be heard 
a block away. 

There was but one fight to mar the sad beauty 
of these declining days—and that was not due to 
the regular dogs and doglets who daily passed 
the Thomas headquarters in leash. They sensed 
danger on that top step, and trotted on, with a 
careful look over the shoulder. But the twin 
chows who had come to the square the day before, 
feeling too well the oats of their graduation from 
the kennels, waited not on advice. Up the gray 
steps they plunged—leash, maid and all—and the 
reddish brown bodies with the uncanny blue 
tongues rushed headlong at the cat, on murder 
bent. There was a lightning-like arching of back 
and raising of hair. Spit! Spat! A paw flashed 
twice, with the invisible speed of nature’s best 
boxer. A drop of blood appeared suddenly, on 
the nose of the nearest chow, while a deep scratch 
furrowed the muzzle of the other. Together 
they turned tail and went howling down the steps. 
They learned later, upon inquiry, what every 
other dog in the square knew already. 

The fate that finally joined the lives of 
Thomas, surname unknown, and the Honorable 
James Van Tassel, alderman of the district, harks 
back not only to the Upjohn abandonment but 
also to their common interest in public service. 


115 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

This labor of patriotism was no novelty to 
Thomas. He had always done his bit as scaven¬ 
ger, and had cheerfully left higher matters to the 
alderman. But stern necessity now drove him 
to unusual exertions. Autumn had followed 
summer into the halls of memory, and it was 
winter, cold winter. With enemies indoors and 
slim hunting without, Thomas renewed his ancient 
attentions to the embattled garbage cans of Wash¬ 
ington Square North. No dietitian possessed a 
more accurate knowledge of the menus of Rip 
Van Winkle Row. Thomas knew the schedule, 
prospects and surprises of every can in the block. 

On this bleak January afternoon, a familiar 
interior gnawing had driven him even to the 
waste paper can on the Fifth Avenue corner. 
There it stood, hard by the Washington arch, in 
all the splendor of its red and green paint, with 
its ominous message, “Obey The Law,” in white 
letters across the red band. Up-ended on the 
edge of the can were the hindquarters of Thomas, 
the rest of him hidden within. Only the gently 
switching tail gave sign of the progress of the 
hunt below. 

It was an invitation; Thomas’s guard was 
down. But the exactions of deep cans compel the 
taking of chances. Thomas had no hint of the 
husky young ditch digger across the street who, 


116 


Thomas 

with upraised arm, was taking careful aim before 
he let fly the very effective piece of old asphalt 
that rested in his hand. 

Neither had Thomas’s fellow public servant, 
the Honorable James Van Tassel, any intimation 
of impending tragedy. He was very intently 
engaged in the business of entertaining that 
charming young person, Miss Sally Skeflington, 
of Washington Square, as they neared the end 
of their favorite walk around the square. 

“Shall we go around again?” he asked, as he 
looked with great satisfaction at the pretty profile 
beside him. The dark eyes and hair above the 
black furs, with that saucy little white chin 
between, gave no hint of answer. “Once more?” 
he suggested wistfully. 

Jimmy Van Tassel was different from the story¬ 
book alderman. Young and slender, with a 
cheery straightforwardness in his face, he had a 
gentle way of drawing people to him. His plead¬ 
ings were hard to refuse. And they had already 
gone far with Miss Sally Skeflington. But now 
she seemed not to hear him. She was standing 
still, and looking straight ahead, in sudden alarm. 

“Oh, stop him!” she exclaimed, with a little 
cry. 

Jimmy followed her glance, and the Thomas 
drama stood revealed, as though by a lightning 


117 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

flash. Without thought he leaped at the laborer, 
grasped the upraised arm and whirled him around 
like a top. As his grip tightened, the missile fell 
clattering to the pavement. Then he dropped the 
offending arm. 

“Hey, whaddaya want!” A shade of anger 
began to spread over the tanned face. 

“There now, just let it go,” said Jimmy quietly 
as they faced each other. He started to turn 
away, but the man crowded forward, in sudden 
rage. 

“Yeah, let it go—you lemme alone-” His 

voice rose to a shout, and a big hand reached for 
Jimmy’s throat. 

“Ugh!” muttered Jimmy in disgust, as he 
sensed a row. Then he suddenly stepped aside, 
and just smiled. “Don’t do it,” he said to the 
bewildered challenger. “Don’t!” But there was 
more than a smile in his eyes. 

The man of the ditch looked up undecidedly, 
a hint of caution blending with his rage. “You 

go grabbin’ my arm-” he started to complain. 

Jimmy knew that action ends when argument 
begins. 

“Yes, I know,” he said soothingly, “I’m sorry. 
Now, let’s forget it—I’ll never do it again!” His 
laugh was so engaging that even the insulted 


118 




Thomas 

digger caught a note of the contagion, and stood 
puzzled and mute. 

Jimmy moved quickly away. “Good-bye!” he 
said pleasantly, with a wave of the hand. 

The few remaining yards of the walk home 
passed in silence. As the white door of the old 
house started to close, Jimmy, from the top step, 
with hat lifted, saw it open again, just a few 
inches. A little study in black and white, framed 
under the hall light, was tilting its pretty chin up 
in Jimmy’s direction. “Jimmy, you were splen¬ 
did!” Surely, there was a ring of something dif¬ 
ferent in the voice! The dark eyes seemed 
different too, as the door closed. Jimmy went 
down the steps vaguely. If he had seen Sally’s 
eyes as they followed him through the lace cur¬ 
tain beside the door, he would have been more 
upset than ever. 

As for Thomas, he had long ago disappeared. 
The splendid red and green can had yielded noth¬ 
ing. But there were glimpses of brighter skies. 
In some fashion opportunities appeared in the 
nether regions of the Skeffington house, where 
naught but hostility had existed before. Thomas 
was quick to take advantage of them. And the 
open hunting on the broad lawns of the square 
took a turn for the better. There were casualties 
among those elusive sparrows that chirped so 


119 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

derisively as they fluttered up and down twixt tree 
and lawn. Thomas could stalk. A score of 
human spectators would often watch his stealthy 
advance, paw after paw, as he hugged the ground; 
and his rush at the end was a hymn to Nimrod! 
The leap in air and the upward swing of his far- 
flung paw would usually miss by inches, but at 
times there was o’er much pride of sparrow—and 
then there was a fall, and a kill. 

As this twilight life between the Skeflington 
amenities and the primeval call of the hunt con¬ 
tinued, Thomas fared well enough; it was almost 
an afterglow of that Upjohn cycle, a half echo 
of an Arcady gone by. His only real trouble lay 
in the passage of the great trucks that rumbled 
by as he crossed the street. They haunted him 
always. Those monsters that devour the city’s 
cats and dogs, and children, had the most 
bewildering way of filling the whole horizon, and 
the shrieks that came from their throats only 
made their whereabouts the more confusing. At 
the least sign of one of these juggernauts 
Thomas would paddle swiftly to the curb, the 
hunter hunted. But often he escaped the great 
wheels by less than a whisker-length, and at times 
he had to dodge and zigzag for his life, before 
he reached his haven. He never could quite 


120 


Thomas 

shake off the haunting dread of these monsters. 
It stayed with him for hours. 

But Thomas was not the only public servant 
visited with troubles. His friend the alderman 
had a haunting dread of his own. For he was 
required shortly to address the Woman’s Political 
Forum on the subject of “Our City’s Charter— 
What it Means.” That was bad enough. It was 
worse that Miss Sophia Skeffington, whose charm¬ 
ing niece Sally was spending the winter with her 
in Washington Square, was an earnest member of 
the Woman’s Political Forum. Jimmy was dubi¬ 
ous about Miss Sophia. She was slight but posi¬ 
tive, and always she had those forbidding little 
crispnesses in store for him, when his siege for 
her niece’s favor became too ardent. Now she 
had declared her firm intention of going to hear 
the charter speech. Jimmy saw nothing but 
trouble ahead. 

When the day came around, Jimmy gave thanks 
for two things: First, for the engagement that 
insured Sally’s absence from the charter meeting; 
and, second, for the invitation that permitted him 
to dine at the Skeffingtons’ house that evening. 
Otherwise, he was in sore distress. He realized 
how little he knew about “Our City’s Charter— 
What it Means.” He had waded through sixteen 
hundred sections of the big book, with perspiring 


121 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

attention, for hours on end. But no sooner had 
he mastered a section that seemed vital than he 
would discover a footnote describing its complete 
repeal at the hands of a judge of the admittedly 
Supreme Court. It was hopeless. In a last des¬ 
perate effort to short-circuit this will-o’-the-wisp, 
he had asked an ancient alderman how to digest 
the charter. “Chowder?” responded the ancient. 
“What chowder? Sullivan’s?” Then he gave 
up. The charter is silent on chowder parties. 

But he faced the music bravely as he strode to 
the platform and at once discovered Miss Sophia 
Skeffington in the front row, with lorgnette 
raised. 

When the agony was over, half an hour later, 
and Jimmy had collapsed into the big armchair 
at the presiding officer's elbow, he realized that 
he had not the slightest recollection of what he 
had said. It had been a soul-trying ordeal. He 
was accustomed to haranguing a dubious populace 
from the tail of a truck on a street corner. He 
had learned how to “point with pride” and “view 
with alarm.” He had some acquaintance with 
adermanic oratory, with its inevitable references 
to “our great city” and “this honorable body.” 
And once, on the day before election, he had 
gotten away with a heart-to-heart talk to his dis¬ 
trict captains that made him more friends than he 


122 


Thomas 


had thought to acquire in a year. But this was 
different—he was the only man in the room. 
There were nearly a hundred women. That re¬ 
quired courage. They had been attentive but 
silent. The hush had nearly killed him. The 
hand-clapping and rustling of silks that had 
greeted the end of his oratorical agony seemed 
to come from afar, as of a whispering of pines, 
above a distant wave-lapped coast. 

He suddenly remembered that he had invited 
questions from the audience, and he bitterly 
regretted this rashness. If Jimmy had known 
how well he had found his way to the hearts of 
his hearers, he would not have feared the ques¬ 
tions. They had soon seen that he was sadly 
adrift on his charter sea. They were adrift 
themselves, and very glad to be—pesky old book I 
It would be better to know why that dirty snow 
was still piled up in the muddy streets! But there 
was Jimmy, with his trusting straightforward¬ 
ness, in dire distress, but seeing it through as a 
gentleman and a soldier, and with ever a hint of 
appeal in his troubled eyes. They took him to 
their hearts and rejoiced that he knew not the 
charter, that he needed all the help they could 
give—and, bless them, did they ask questions? 
Not one! But wait—yes, there was one. In the 
front row Miss Sophia Skeffington had folded 


123 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

her lorgnette and risen, doubtfully at first, then 
with quiet determination. Jimmy faced the chal¬ 
lenge in her eye; he did not see the twinkle that 
went with it. 

“Madame Chairman,” she began, “I have only 
one question to ask the speaker. In thanking him 
for his illuminating address—which, I must say, 
seemed a little long for such a simple subject—I 
want to ask him why the government has not 
removed the dead cat that has been in front of 
my house since early this morning?” 

Jimmy gulped, as the chairman’s plume nodded 
to him to answer. He rose, while the room 
became silent. 

“Ah—er—I’m afraid I really don’t know,” he 
stammered, “but—I’ll try to—have it removed.” 
Then, with sudden inspiration, and with a smile 
breaking over his face, “I’ll get about it right 
away!” 

He reached for his hat and coat, made his 
adieus to the chairman, and with a bow and a 
laugh, hurried from the platform. There was a 
sudden giggle of sympathy for this unexpected 
escape, that went from one end of the room to 
the other, and here and there a woman clapped 
her hands as she laughed. 

“By six o’clock?” inquired Miss Skeffington 


124 


Thomas 

sweetly, as Jimmy passed the front row. “I shall 
be home then.” 

es, with pleasure,” he replied vaguely and 
sadly puzzled by the quizzical expression of Miss 
Sophia’s face. 

As he went out the door, he looked at his 
watch. “Good Lord,” he muttered. It was four 
o’clock. 

When Alderman Van Tassel, of the 75th dis¬ 
trict, stepped out of the taxi just short of the 
Skeffingtons’ house on Washington Square, he 
saw that there was serious work ahead. 

Miss Sophia had asked him a question that 
dealt with facts. There, against the curb, lay the 
last of a brave spirit—yes—the black and white 
patches told the story only too well. This could 
be none other than Thomas, who had hunted, 
lived and died. Equal to all ordinary hazards, 
self-contained in fair weather and foul, and ap¬ 
praisingly wary of fickle human kind, he had 
survived where others failed. But the great 
trucks grind fine, and spare but few. The haunt¬ 
ing fear had become a fact—and Thomas was 
away. 

Jimmy felt a sudden sorrow as he fixed the 
identity of the dead game sport who had gone. 
He had found many opportunities of observing 
the Thomas traits, in the course of his devotions 


125 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

at the Skeffington shrine; and he was well aware 
of the inspiration of those welcome attentions 
from below stairs that had followed the incident 
of the waste paper can. He shook himself free 
of his musing with a jerk, as he looked at his 
watch again. It was half-past four. 

“Brevoort!” he called to the driver, as he 
stepped back into the taxi. 

There he went to work on the charter, by tele¬ 
phone. Obviously, the Street Cleaning Depart¬ 
ment was charged with this task, but could they 
do it in time? Departmental offices close at five 
o’clock, and Jimmy was already familiar with the 
pause that precedes action on complaints by citi¬ 
zens. Perhaps they would hurry if he told them 
he was an alderman. 

“Yes, this is Alderman Van Tassel,” he 
shouted, as a gruff query came back over the wire, 
“and I’ll greatly appreciate it if you will remove 
a dead cat from in front of-” 

“We don’t take dead cats,” interrupted the 
gruff voice. 

“But don’t you clean the streets?” 

“Yes—sometimes—when you give us a decent 
appropriation, Alderman.” 

“Oh, yes—but whom should I ask-” 

“Ah, gwan—‘whom should you ask’! You’re 
no alderman—stop kiddin’ me-” 


126 





Thomas 

“But I’m not kidding-” 

“Ah, try the Borough President,” came the 
answering growl, as the Department of Street 
Cleaning impatiently rang off. 

Jimmy was plugged into the Borough Presi¬ 
dent’s office. 

“Sorry, Alderman, you’re in the wrong pew,” 
came a quick voice. 

“But don’t you look out for the streets?” 

“Yes—pavements, sewers, sidewalks, signs, 
stoops, posts-” 

Jimmy listened breathlessly. 

“But not cats.” 

And then somebody cut in and ordered him to 
ring off. Jimmy thought hard. Yes, he was sure 
of it—the Water Department had something to 
do with streets—with pipes and wires, anyhow. 
He got them on the phone—it was ten minutes 
to five. 

“Is this the Water Department?” 

“Yes, what is your business?” 

“Will you please—er—help me with a dead 
cat?” 

“Oh, help yourself—this is the JVater Depart¬ 
ment, not the cat department—what are you tryin’ 
to do—kid me?” 

“No, really I’m not—I’m in trouble—I want 
»> 


127 





Van Tassel and Big Bill 

“Say, are you the guy that calls up the 
Aquarium and asks for Mr. Fish?” 

Jimmy was silent under the accusation. 

“Quitcha kiddin!” The Water Department 
rang off. 

A head popped out of the next booth. 

“What you want is the Bureau of Encum¬ 
brances.” 

The head popped in again. 

Jimmy searched the directory for the Bureau 
of Encumbrances. There was nothing like it 
under “B” or “E,” or elsewhere so far as he 
could see. He emerged from the booth in despair. 
It was five o’clock. This was desperate. As he 
paid for the calls, an idea came to him. He 
fixed a soulful eye on the operator. 

“You must have inquiries about everything,” 
he said, as the flaxen-haired amazon gave him 
a cautious look from the corner of her eye. “Do 
you know which city department takes away dead 
cats?” 

The operator glanced quickly toward the door¬ 
man, then with quiet alertness returned Van Tas¬ 
sel’s look. 

“What’s the catch?” she said, sparring for 
time. 

The doorman was approaching, with rushing 
muscles ready. 


128 


Thomas 

“Oh, dear,” sighed Jimmy, as he turned away, 
in defeat. The doorman waited as he passed, 
then followed slowly, toward the front steps. 

“Better watch him, Mike,” said the amazon 
quietly. “Number please? Columbus—th-r-ree 
foh- ur—two nye-un? Room eleven? Here’s 
your party!” The amazon was plugging in and 
out as though madmen were all in the day’s work. 
She was a competent operator. 

As Jimmy stood uncertainly on the front steps, 
a big-framed man rounded the corner and strode 
up the avenue with the leisure that marks the 
early homeward bound. The thick moustache 
under the slouch hat and the searching eyes gave 
instant revelation of Big Bill Baker, messenger 
in the service of the city government and minister 
extraordinary to the needs of new aldermen. It 
was Big Bill who had been Jimmy’s best friend 
in the district, from the day he took office. It 
was Big Bill who had taught him most of what he 
knew about “Our City’s Charter—What it 
Means.” 

“Oh, Bill!” Jimmy was on the sidewalk with 
a bound. 

“Hello, Jimmy!” Bill’s eyes looked his liking 
for the new pupil. 

“I’m in trouble, Bill. There’s a dead cat in 
front of the Skeffingtons’ house on the Square, 


129 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

and I’ve got to get it away by six o’clock, and I’ve 

tried all the departments, and-” Jimmy 

stopped for breath. 

“Take it easy,” put in the messenger sooth¬ 
ingly, “nobody’s goin’ ter stand in yer way. 
Wha’d’yer want with the cat?” 

“I don’t want it!” burst out Jimmy. “I just 
want to get rid of it!” 

“Oh—that all? Did yer notify the Health 
Department?” 

A wild look came into the alderman’s eyes. 
“So that’s the dead cat department!” he gasped. 
It was in the charter, tucked away in a bed of 
fine print, but he had missed it. “No,” he added, 
“I tried all the others.” 

“Wait a minute,” said Bill, and he disappeared 
into the hotel. When he returned, there was a 
flicker of amusement in his eye. 

“Had ’em a little worried in there, didn’t yer ?” 
They’re still nervous. Well, I got Kelly, down 
in the department—just as he was goin’—an’ he 
says he can switch the wagon over here. They’re 
pickin’ up a dog in Bleecker Street. We better 
go ’round an’ look out fer ’em.” 

As they marched upon the Skeffington house, 
Bill hazarded a query. “Any votes in that house ?” 

“No,” said Jimmy, shortly, looking straight 


130 



Thomas 

ahead. Nor were there, where woman dwelt, 
in those patriarchal days. 

“I thoughtcha might be pullin’ a good one,” 
continued Bill, after a pause. “I remember when 
Alderman Pickens got a dead horse away from 
the Elks, in Bank Street, just before meetin’, an’ 
the whole lodge was with ’im when he run in 
November. But this here dead cat—I don’t see 
no politics in it.” 

“The Skeffingtons are friends of mine,” said 
the alderman, a little stiffly. 

“Oh.” 

Some one had shrouded the cat remains securely 
in a piece of white wrapping paper, and had tied 
a string around the parcel. Perhaps it was the 
Skeffington butler. Perhaps not. But the impas¬ 
sive face that peered stealthily from the basement 
window seemed even more sombre than usual. 

Big Bill and the alderman stood out their vigil 
on the curb. They scanned every wagon that 
approached, they watched the street-ends that 
gave on the square, they shifted and fidgeted, 
and waited. It seemed as though all the wagons 
in New York had gone by—except the one they 
wanted. 

Jimmy looked at his watch again. Ah! It 
was six o’clock. He peered nervously along Rip 
Van Winkle Row, in sudden alarm lest the Skef- 


131 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

fington carriage should already be at hand. It 
would never do to be overtaken by Miss Sophia 
in the very shadow of the corpus delicti. The 
coast was clear, and he breathed more easily. 
But there was no time to be wasted. 

“Bill, I’ve just got to do this,” he said. “Do 
you think that wagon will come? It’s six o’clock 
already.” 

“Better forget the wagon,” said Bill. “Kelly 
musta fell down. We gotta get busy.” He 
thought a minute. “How about a taxi? There’s 
Jake, around the corner—he might be in the 
line. He’d do a job like this.” 

They looked toward Fifth Avenue. Jimmy’s 
heart sank. The Skeffington carriage stood in 
the avenue, blocked by the crosstown traffic, and 
just visible beyond the big house on the corner. 
“Too late,” he said. “There she comes. Oh, 
what a fix I’m in!” 

But Big Bill knew when to act quickly. A 
bright new touring car in shining garnet was purr¬ 
ing through the block. Before Jimmy could 
speak, Bill was in the roadway, with both hands 
up and shouting, “Whoa!” With a whine of the 
emergency brake, the big car stopped within a 
yard of him, and a vexed face appeared from 
behind the wind shield. 


132 


Thomas 

“What are you trying to do—kill yourself?” 
came the driver’s voice, with rising impatience. 

But now it was Jimmy’s turn. 

“Oh, Andy—Andy Nichols!” he shouted. 
“You’re just in time ! Let me in—quick!” 

He opened the door and climbed in beside his 
friend without further ado, while Big Bill hastily 
placed a securely tied package in the seat behind. 

“Go ahead, quick!” breathed Jimmy hoarsely. 
“Quick, Andy—and step on her—I’ve got to get 
out of here!” 

Andy was a friend. His not to reason why, 
his but to—step on her. And he did. 

“Try the Bronx!” Big Bill yelled after them. 

As the streak of purring garnet swung into 
University Place, Jimmy looked over his shoulder. 
Big Bill was standing thoughfully on the curb, 
and, beside him, a footman was holding the door 
of the Skeffington carriage as Sally and Miss 
Sophia emerged from its secluded interior. The 
touring car speeded north. 

“Yes, ma’am,” Big Bill was saying, as Miss 
Sophia made inquiry about the late unpleasant¬ 
ness, “yes, ma’am, the alderman was on the job, 
an’ he had it done up fine. Oh, he knows the 
ropes all right—had the department here in no 
time—some alderman, I’ll say! What ma’am? 
Oh, no, ma’am, I ain’t in the department—just 


133 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

a friend o’ the alderman’s. Oh, that’s all right, 
ma’am—we city fellers all look alike.” 

“Are you Mr. Baker?” asked Sally suddenly, 
as she stood beside her aunt. 

“Yes, miss,” said Bill. 

“Oh, I’m so glad to know you—Jimmy thinks 
so much of you.” And then that charming young 
person had kept her aunt waiting twenty minutes 
on the sidewalk, while she enshrined herself in 
Big Bill’s rough devotion and gradually got the 
whole story of the cat—the true story. “How 
delicious I” she said, as they bade good-bye to 
Big Bill and went up the steps, “poor Jimmy!” 
Miss Sophia had told her about the lecture on 
the charter. 

When the Skeffington telephone rang to the 
call of an uptown booth a few minutes later, Miss 
Sophia received the maid’s announcement of “Mr. 
Van Tassel calling on the telephone, ma’am,” with 
that same quizzical look that had so puzzled 
Jimmy at the meeting of the Woman’s Political 
Forum. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she murmured into 
the receiver. “Do come afterwards, for the 
evening—I must hear all about the charter, on 
dead cats!” 

Miss Sophia smothered a gentle little laugh, of 
a kind that had worked havoc in Rip Van Winkle 
Row in those long-ago days of the sixties, when 


134 


Thomas 

young lieutenants drilled by the white tents in the 
old square and then went off to Virginia battle¬ 
fields. But that was very long ago, and some of 
them had never come back. 

Miss Sophia went on quickly, as she sensed 
Jimmy’s embarrassment. “Would you like to 
speak to my niece? I think she’s right here.” 

Sally was not quite “right here,” but almost. 
She took the receiver from Miss Sophia’s hand. 

“Jimmy, you dear boy-” she exclaimed, a few 

minutes later. In the other room Miss Sophia 
started. But Sally had suddenly rung off and was 
hurrying upstairs. Miss Sophia smiled, and then 
a faraway light crept softly into her eyes. She 
stood looking out at the trees that stood bare 
and leafless in the square. When the chimes 
sounded for dinner she was still looking out at 
the square. But she did not see the trees, only 
the old white tents. 

When Andy had heard the whole story, and 
resolved once more never to be an alderman; 
when the last relic of a good sport and a great 
hunter had received decent burial in the Bronx; 
and when the Honorable James Van Tassel had 
accoutred himself in those solemn garments that 
stalk abroad in the evening, he left the big house 
on Murray Hill and walked south to Washington 
Square. It was freezing again, and a light fall 


135 



Van Tassel and Big Bill 

of snow had covered the dirty hideousness of the 
Alpine snow piles that still lined the avenue. The 
sidewalks were slippery with thin ice. 

As Jimmy neared the corner of the square and 
looked up at the arch, his heart fell to thumping 
in a way that bewildered him. But it was nothing 
beside the tumult that was singing through his 
thoughts. He could neither phrase nor define 
this thing that carried him like a leaf before the 
wind—nor did he much care about that. He 
knew only that he was riding with it, riding high 
in air and happy, and riding, riding hard. If he 
had known of what lay such a little while ahead, 
he would have been just ordinarily the happiest 
man in New York, as thousands are this very 
day—aye, perhaps this very minute ! Jimmy was 
riding the clouds, to the oldest song of all! 

It was not strange that in this condition of 
mind he should slip on the ice at the corner and 
recover his balance with great difficulty. As he 
straightened up, he started, and stared forward as 
though his eyes would start from their sockets. 
And he stood stock still. On the lip of the red 
and green can at the curb, a familiar figure, with 
black patches on a white coat, stood irresolute, 
while a pair of ghostly green orbs gleamed from 
the dark recesses of the can. The black tail with 
the white tip switched gently to and fro. 


136 


Thomas 


“Meow I” said Thomas. 

Then he leaped from the can, and, with tail 
erect, paddled swiftly away toward his friends 
the Skeffingtons. 

“Good Lord,” muttered Jimmy a moment 
later, as he came back to the land of the living. 
“It was another cat after all.” 

And he followed Thomas toward the Skeffing- 
tons’ house, in Rip Van Winkle Row. 


137 


BIG BILL SPEAKS HIS MIND 

M RS. KENT was a “clerk, third grade’’— 
just a small cog in the great civil service 
wheel that grinds out the city’s work the year 
around—just one of seventy thousand city em¬ 
ployees. They called her “the little clerk, be¬ 
cause they liked her. And all day long she added 
figures, over in the great gray Municipal Build¬ 
ing. 

But Mrs. Kent was really more. For she had 
two jobs—though you would hardly think so, to 
look at her. She was such a little woman, in her 
white hair and black clothes, that even one job 
seemed too much. Yet, when it came to five 
o’clock on this day in February, and she had put 
away the sheets of figures that had covered her 
desk since morning, there she was, still at her 
task, instead of hurrying out with the rest of 
the clerks. She pulled from a pigeon hole a 
package of papers marked “Welfare Committee,” 
and her face lighted up, as she went to work all 
over again. Mrs. Kent was on her second job. 

There was nothing in the city charter about 
“welfare work,” at the hands of a clerk, third 


138 



Big Bill Speaks His Mind 

grade or any one else. But the years had 
marched, if the charter had not, and here, in the 
Department of Poles and Pipes, the isolated help¬ 
ing hand of one city employee to another had 
found form in a “Welfare Committee” of the 
employees themselves. As the inevitable rainy 
days turned up, the half-dozen who formed the 
committee loaned money here, or gave it there, 
or led a doctor or nurse anywhere. From time 
to time they “ran off” a ball, and sold in shoals 
the tickets that furnished the sinews of mercy. 
And every year, at Christmas, a hundred baskets 
of turkey, holly, dolls and what-not found their 
unseen way into a hundred homes that had come 
hungry to the holidays. 

All in all, they were a very bustling, busy little 
committee, but they alone knew who caught at 
their helping hands—the committee and Mrs. 
Kent. For they had long ago found a great heart 
in her small frame, and a canny discernment back 
of her black eyes, that made her the inevitable 
bearer of the aid that went straight into the 
homes of those who came for help. She had 
visited hundreds of these homes, and every one 
knew “the little clerk” with the cheery smile 
and sturdy good sense that could not be fooled. 
It was Mrs. Kent who weighed the needs of those 
who pleaded, who lectured the shiftless, who kept 


139 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

her secrets; it was Mrs. Kent who acted for the 
committee when there was need of haste. 

As she glanced at the first sheet in the package 
of papers, there was a click of the door that 
opened on the hall. 

“Cornin’ over, Mrs. Kent? They’re all there 
waitin’ a’ready. Guess they must a’come a little 
early to-day.” 

As the big voice burst into the room, the owner 
stood with his hand on the door knob, and head 
inserted at an angle of forty-five degrees. 

“Yes, Bill, I’ll be there right away,” and she 
turned to her papers again. Then she looked 
up, for the door had not clicked her caller’s exit. 

“Say, I hope yer won’t mind my sayin’ so, 
but-” 

The owner of the voice stepped all the way 
in, with his hand still on the knob. He carried 
six feet of frame under a square jaw, gray eyes 
and a shock of thick grayish hair. As one of the 
multitudinous messengers in the city’s service, Big 
Bill Baker had certain dignities of office that 
allowed liberty of comment. Furthermore, he 
was a member of the welfare committee. This 
time he had a message of his own, that he pro¬ 
posed to deliver. 

“I was just wonderin’,” he continued, “if the 
new commissioner’d given yer a tumble yet?” 


140 



Big Bill Speaks His Mind 

“No, I haven’t met him.” 

The messenger’s face, which registered his 
every emotion as faithfully as a lake records the 
passing breeze, looked troubled. He hesitated 
a moment, then closed the door carefully, looked 
around, and came over to the little clerk’s big 
desk in the corner. 

“Mrs. Kent, I hadn’t meant to say nothin’ to 
yer,” he said, in an undertone, “but I don’t like 
the looks o’ things. I can’t tell yer what it is, 
but somehow it don’t feel right. ’Course, you 
know how they are, them commissioners—all 
alike, every one different, an’ in they come an’ 
out they go, an’ we keep goin’ on just the same. 
But I don’t like the looks o’ this feller—some¬ 
how he always seems kind o’ suspicious like. Yes¬ 
terday I heard him say, ‘What’s this Welfare 
Committee anyhow? Where does all the money 
go? How do we know it’s goin’ to the right 
parties ?’—jus’ like that! Oh, he’s some wise guy, 
he is, I guess not I He was talkin’ ter the in¬ 
spector, an’ I couldn’t help hearin’ what he said— 
he was talkin’ so loud. I wisht he’d only known 

what you done—I wisht I could tell him-” 

It seemed as though something had made the 
big man speechless for a second; for he willed 
the little clerk a shaggy devotion that yielded to 
none. 


141 



Van Tassel and Big Bill 

“But that ain’t fer the likes o’ me,” he started 
off again. “I ain’t goin’ ter get in wrong—y’ 
know what they do-” 

“Maybe it will be all right,” said Mrs. Kent, 
cheerfully. “I hope so,” she added, as Big Bill 
went out the door. 

Then she turned to her papers, more briskly, 
for the committee was ready, and these were the 
cases upon which she must report, and recom¬ 
mend. As she went through the package, she 
paused midway, and her lips widened into a smile 
as she read the pencilled notes. Yes, she remem¬ 
bered this case very well; “Instalment Joe” Don- 
nerson, back again, and this time it was a phono¬ 
graph ! As though a wife and five kids in Chelsea 
were not enough for a watchman’s wage, with¬ 
out giving hostages to eternity in the shape of 
Caruso by weekly instalments! The last time it 
had been a bureau with a mirror, for the “missus,” 
that had been the last straw to the overloaded 
Donnerson finances, and Joe had come to the wel¬ 
fare committee for a “bit of a lift” to keep the 
landlord in his place. If for once he would get 
square—just once, for five minutes—but that was 
not in the Donnersonian economic philosophy. 

“Y’know, the kids like that Carooze stuff,” he 
had said, when Mrs. Kent called at the little 
flat, “an’ the missus she likes it too. Don’tcha 


142 



Big Bill Speaks His Mind 

think they oughta have a chance? They’re livin’ 
all the time, an’ what good would it be to get 
square, the way you say, an’ then have nuthin’ at 
all? Where do they come in on that kind of a 
deal?” To which the “missus” had agreed, with 
an apologetic nod of the head, and Instalment Joe 
had then had the effrontery to turn on the instal¬ 
ment tenor tones that in a fatal moment had 
eclipsed the imminence of the landlord. The little 
Joes who were present had formed a claque that 
even Mrs. Kent could not withstand. To her great 
discomfiture, she had been unable to keep her face 
clear of their reflected joy, and she knew that 
“pop’s” watchman’s eye had taken hopeful note 
of this good omen. Now that the spendthrift 
scene from Chelsea came into view again, as she 
read the notes of her visit, she realized that the 
watchman’s philosophy and his claque, working 
well together, had sent her down to defeat once 
more. But she smiled as though she enjoyed it. 
Then she stopped short, and set out for the 
meeting. 

Across the hall, the welfare committee was 
ready for business. In command was Riley, a 
foreman of laborers, red of face and heavy of 
fist, with a barrel-like form that threatened to 
split apart the arms of the chair that temporarily 
confined him. At his right sat Mrs. O’Sullivan, 


143 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

for the matrons: and then, in order, Big Bill; 
Meyers, of the bureau of accounting, a nervous 
tangle of bones and angles; Miss Lord, the dep¬ 
uty’s stenographer; Jones, from the gangs; and 
Gilotti, who mopped floors from eight to five— 
with an hour out for lunch. 

“Well, what’s the loan cases, Mrs. Kent?” 
boomed Riley from his confinement, as they set¬ 
tled down to work. 

“The first one is Donnerson, at the Tenth 
Avenue yard.” 

“The watchman we had in October?” asked 
Meyers quickly. 

“Yes-” 

“Say, is that feller back again?” expostulated 
Riley. “Joe Donnerson, all over again! Just as 
though we hadn’t—well, what’s he got now?” 

“Just a little phonograph for the kiddies.” 

“Yes, an’ a lot o’ good that’ll do him with 
the landlord—phonograph! I suppose he thinks 
he can talk him out o’ the rent with it—say, what 
does he think we are, anyhow? How much does 
he want now?” 

“He ought to have thirty dollars to-night.” 

“Well-1-” Riley glowed around the circle. 

“We helped him last fall, and he ought to get 
along on his own,” responded the accountant 
crisply. 


144 




Big Bill Speaks His Mind 

“He dis-a-possess ?” asked the mopper. 

“I’m afraid so,” said Mrs. Kent. “You know, 
there are five children.” 

“Yes, five kids of a fool father,” boomed Riley. 
“ ‘Instalment Joe’—that’s a good name for that 
guy. Every six months, goes off like an alarm 
clock—then, no sooner pays up an’ he’s off again, 
with another piece o’ junk. A watchman! Say, 
that feller couldn’t watch a parade-” 

“Shall we let him have thirty?” asked Mrs. 
Kent. 

“O’ course we gotta give it to him,” thundered 
Riley. “That’s what we’re here for. Stuck again, 
an’ good an’ plenty. Say, I’ve known that feller 
for ten years, an’ I can’t see where he gets off ter 
keep a-comin’ down here, an’-” 

As Riley caught the twinkle in Mrs. Kent’s 
eyes, his rumble relapsed into surrender, as it had 
many times before. 

“But give’m a good call, will yer, Mrs. Kent? 
Honest, he needs it.” 

“An’ be sure an’ get a receipt,” put in Big Bill. 
“You know—look out fer yerself—don’t take no 
chances.” 

“Huh? Yer mean-?” questioned Riley. 

“Yeah—you know.” 

“I hear he’s going to have a bull after us,” 
said Meyers, with a nervous laugh. “Better look 


145 






Van Tassel and Big Bill 

out, Mrs. Kent—that new inspector’s some 
sleuth—watches the gangs from in back of a 
truck, they say, and turns in hot reports to the 
boss.” 

The little circle did not share the accountant’s 
mirth, but there were no comments. The inter¬ 
weavings of departmental politics teach safety in 
silence, and it is healthy to follow the rule. 

When the meeting was over, Mrs. Kent pat¬ 
tered off to supper at one of the white tiled restau¬ 
rants that constituted her peripatetic dining room. 

At eight o’clock she was picking her way over 
the railroad tracks in lower Tenth Avenue, and 
rounding the corner of the board fence that en¬ 
closed the Tenth Avenue yard. The street was 
dark here, and the wagons and drays that lined 
the curb for their night’s lodging took on queer 
shapes, and their uptilted poles and shafts made 
strange shadows. As they lay there in silence, 
awaiting the rattle and roar of the next day’s 
work, they seemed like the tortured ghosts of a 
city deserted, of a street struck dead. She hurried 
on to the shack where Donnerson did his watching 
for the sleeping taxpayers, and found him at the 
doorstep, by the fence. 

“I thought you’d better have it tonight,” she 
said, and she fumbled for the bills that promised 
peace with the Donnerson landlord. “There— 


146 


Big Bill Speaks His Mind 

isn’t that right?” She handed the roll of green to 
the complacent Joe. 

“Yes, ma’am—thank you, ma’am—just a min¬ 
ute till I count ’em.” He unrolled the bills, and 
fingered them over slowly in the dim light. “They 
certainly look good,” he beamed. Then he bent 
down, and looked more closely. 

“Was it all tens, Mrs. Kent?” 

“Why, yes, three tens; I put them together 
when I left the office.” 

“Well, if that ain’t funny—seems almost as 
though you were throwin’ sump’n in for good 
measure,” and the watchman chuckled. “There’s 
four of ’em, Mrs. Kent. Guess I gotta give one 
of ’em back. Well, here goes,” and with a linger¬ 
ing look at the extra ten-spot, he handed it back 
to his visitor. 

“What a silly mistake,” she said, as they both 
laughed. “I don’t see how I came to—Oh!” She 
gave a little start, and turned around. “Did you 
hear that—over there?” 

“Hear that? Oh, yes’m—that happens all the 
time.” Joe put on his “There, there, don’t cry” 
accent. “Just one o’ them creaks. Them old 
wagons, they’d oughta be run off the island, any¬ 
how—horses ain’t no good any more. Rickety 
old no-account junk. Sometimes they creaks like 
that in a wind, so yer’d think they were failin’ 


147 


/ 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

apart altogether. ’Tain’t nuthin’, ma’am—yer 
can go home ’round this corner as safe as Fi’th 
Av’nyer—a whole lot safer, nowadays. Why, 
with all them crowds an’ hold-ups goin’ on over 
there, it’s better right here on Double Fi’th Av’¬ 
nyer—haw, haw!” 

Joe’s laugh was enough to rattle the old wagons 
into their graves, and Mrs. Kent turned with a 
“good-night—remember me to the kiddies,” and 
rounded the corner again toward the railroad 
tracks. It was not until she reached her furnished 
room in Harlem, and sat down to rest, that she 
remembered the “call-down” she had been di¬ 
rected to administer to the recurrent Donnerson. 
She had forgotten all about it. 

The next morning there was a folded slip of 
white paper on the outside of Mrs. Kent’s desk. 
She opened it perfunctorily. These appeals came 
every few days, from some private in the ranks 
of the Department of Poles and Pipes who needed 
help. 

“The Commissioner wishes to see you at once.” 
That was what she read on the white slip. 

She stood still and thought a minute. This 
was an unexpected summons. She began to admin¬ 
ister the agitated little touches to the hair that 
presage an interview. 

On her way down the hall she met Big Bill 


148 


Big Bill Speaks His Mind 

wriggling into his overcoat as he hurried along, 
head down. As she stepped out of his unseeing 
way, he looked up, and stopped. 

“Goin’ in ter see the boss?” he laughed. 

“Yes, he sent word for me to come.” 

“Yer say he sent word!” 

“Yes, there’s the note.” 

He read it slowly, then handed it back. 

“That’s a funny one. Well, good luck!” He 
started on. But, as Mrs. Kent disappeared be¬ 
hind the “Boss’s” outer door, Big Bill stopped, 
thought a minute, then slowly took off his coat, 
turned around and followed. 

Inside, in the boss’s inner office, the little clerk 
was standing before a sharp-featured, smartly 
dressed man at a big, flat desk who looked up at 
her with half-closed eyes and flung out a half¬ 
gesture of command that she be seated. The new 
commissioner sat slowly up in his chair, thrust his 
head forward, and rested an elbow on the desk 
while he gave his visitor the “once-over” again. 
At last, with no trace of emotion, he spoke. 

“You’re Mrs. Kent, who does the welfare com¬ 
mittee’s visiting?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Mrs. Kent, I’m new in this position, but I 
wasn’t born yesterday, and I know what goes on 
around me. Last night, at eight o’clock, at the 


149 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

Tenth Avenue yard, you were seen giving money 
to Watchman Donnerson, and then—” he leaned 
forward a little farther and spoke slowly—“you 
were seen to take part of that money back, and 
leave with it. Have you anything to say in 
explanation?” 

As the surprising nature of this explicit thun¬ 
derbolt gradually entered the little woman’s con¬ 
sciousness, and she realized its implication, she 
felt a blush of humiliation that seemed to be fairly 
burning up her face. She began to tell the inci¬ 
dent of the wrong number of bills, but with each 
word her face seemed to burn the more, until she 
found herself faltering, and then suddenly silent. 
If she could only control that burning in her face, 
she could go on and say more to the half-closed 
eyes that looked at her so hard. She must say 
more, she thought. Somehow she must break the 
silence that shrouded this bad dream. 

“Is that all you have to say?” asked the com¬ 
missioner. 

Of a sudden she felt like laughing. Of all the 
ridiculous misunderstandings—could anything be 
more ludicrous? 

“Yes,” she said. “That’s all.” 

“Very well. It is my duty to tell you that your 
story would not keep a jury out half a minute. 
With the evidence that I have in my hands, no 


150 


Big Bill Speaks His Mind 

sane person would believe that you were not split¬ 
ting these charitable funds with the man you gave 
the money to. If this were a departmental matter, 
I would take a different course. As it is a matter 
of private funds, I can only order you to refund 
what you have already taken and to separate 
yourself from any further activity for this welfare 
committee, as you call it. I am sorry this has 
happened. If I were not a pretty good judge of 
human nature, I could scarcely believe it to be 
possible. That is all. You may go.” 

The commissioner turned to the papers on his 
desk. The little clerk had risen from her chair, 
half turned to go and then wheeled about again. 
As she stood uncertainly, the commissioner 
looked up. 

“Well?” he said. 

“May I please say one word?” Mrs. Kent 
began. Then, without waiting for permission, 
she hurried on. “Please, sir, I know that you 
don’t—know—me—.” She faltered, but went on. 
“But the watchman—really, he’s an honest man. 
He wouldn’t take—” 

“I wouldn’t trust him around the corner,” inter¬ 
rupted the commissioner roughly. “Wouldn’t 
trust any of you in that kind of a deal—wouldn’t 
believe you under oath. I know human nature, 
and I know what I’m talking about—and I don’t 


151 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

want to hear any more. You’ve got your job in 
the department—you’re not getting hurt—only be 
careful—” 

The target of this plain talk had stood up 
straighter and straighter as she listened. The 
blushes had gone, and her chin had gradually 
tilted higher. She was so white that her superior 
had stopped to look at her. She took a step 
forward. 

“Commissioner, I want to tell you one thing, 
and then I’ll go. I want to tell you that you’ve 
made the mistake of your life. I may seem very 
small to you, but I’m honest, and I’ve been honest 
all my life, as my mother and father were before 
me. And Donnerson is honest. He’s foolish and 
never saves a cent, but he’s a good father and 
a good husband. Of course, I can stop the wel¬ 
fare work — I’ll stop it — but, oh-h-h—” She 
breathed out her disgust, and clenched her fist. “I 
tell you, if you’ll show me the man who said this 
about me, I’ll make a grease spot of him that you 
can’t see on the floor!” 

Then her eyes, that had been flashing so an¬ 
grily, filled suddenly to brimming, and how she 
got out of the room she didn’t know. As she 
hurried away, she heard some one far off say, 
“Where yer goin’, Mrs. Kent?” and then she was 
in the dark corner by the big desk, with the hot 


152 


Big Bill Speaks His Mind 

tears coming faster and faster. She reached for 
the speck of white that is called a handkerchief, 
and then the room seemed to turn suddenly 
darker, and, for the first time since she joined the 
Department—the “little clerk” knew nothing of 
what was going on. 

In the commissioner’s outer office there was 
raging at this moment a silent debate inside of 
six feet of departmental messenger, and each point 
in this contest of caution with outrage found its 
tally in the messenger’s face. A knock on the 
boss’s door marked the end of the debate, and, 
almost before the impatient “Come in!” had 
responded, Big Bill found himself standing 
awkwardly before his municipal commanding 
officer. 

“Well, what is it, Baker?” inquired the preoc¬ 
cupied judge of human nature, with annoyance. 

“It’s just this way, Commissioner.” Bill took 
a quick gulp. He was all the way in now, and he 
must be careful. “I couldn’t help hearin’ whatcha 
were sayin’ ter Mrs. Kent, yer were talkin’ so 
loudlike, and I thoughtcha wouldn’t mind my put¬ 
tin’ in a good word for her. Yer must excuse me. 
I know it ain’t none o’ my business. But, on the 
level, boss, she’s a good woman. She’s done more 
good around here for the last ten years, an’ never 
takes on about it—she’s one worker, she is! 


153 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

Always on the job, an’ always with a smile for 
everybody—” 

“I’m afraid she has a pretty good smile for 
herself,” interrupted the commissioner. 

Big Bill waited a moment. He must be careful 
not to show any sign of resentment—just a few 
words that might help, and then he’d go, with no 
row, nor fuss, nor “getting in bad” with the boss. 
He must not “bat an eye,” to say nothing of 
“turning a hair.” 

“No, boss, she ain’t that kind. She’s just plain 
good, that’s what she is. So help me God, she 
wouldn’t take a dollar—not from nobody.” 

“Well, I think she’s just plain no good, and 
that’s pretty near right.” 

Big Bill had often boasted that filling a four 
flush was nothing in his life, not so you could 
notice it in his face; he knew politics and he had 
a face that was safe—“just blank and easy, no 
surprise—never let ’em surprise yer—might give 
yer away—bad politics.” He was playing the 
game now, playing it just right, he congratulated 
himself, with face “blank and easy.” But he could 
not be expected to keep track of two loose fists 
in addition to one face, and he could not see what 
the boss saw, as both fists suddenly closed. Then, 
against the teachings of a lifetime, he suddenly 
played “bad politics.” 


154 


Big Bill Speaks His Mind 

“Say, boss, you’re wrong!” he shouted, so that 
he hardly knew it was his own voice. “You’re 
dead wrong,” he hurried on. “You don’t know 
the first thing—” 

“Stop! I won’t hear such talk!” 

“Yes, yer will—an’ yer’ll hear it from me right 
now! You lay off that stuff, I tell yer—an’ let 
that woman alone, or—” 

“Or what?” The commissioner stood up 
quickly, and backed off a step. 

“Or yer’ll get the worst trimmin’ yer ever got 
in yer life—an’ that goes—d’ yer hear me now?” 

The big man stepped forward, thrust out his 
jaw, and lowered his voice, as his eyes met his 
opponent’s, less than a foot away. 

“Yer cheesy little two spot,” he almost whis¬ 
pered. “Y’ can’t do nuthin’ ter me! Who are 
you, anyhow? Cornin’ in here with yer sleuths 
and yer gum shoes—where d’yer get off ter be 
handin’ out that kind o’ stuff? Why, I was here 
before you was born, an’ I’ll be here after yer 
dead. If yer don’t believe me, ask Tom Dono¬ 
van.” Donovan was a district leader whose name 
was known and feared from the Battery to the 
Park. 

“Ye-es, yer’d better look around! Wherever 
did yer get off ter get this job, anyhow? You— 
a commissioner! Why, you couldn’t get your 


155 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

picture in the Rogues’ Gallery!” He paused, 
then went on more scornfully. 

“An’ who gotcha the job? Yeah, Brannigan— 
your leader—think I don’t know! Yer second¬ 
hand dude—with yer bankroll and yer plate-glass 
name! Oh, I know how yer got yer pull with 
Brannigan. An’ Donovan knows—yeah, that an’ 
more, too, he knows—about you an’ Brannigan.” 

The commissioner had turned pale, and taken 
another step back. He seemed to be trying to 
speak. 

“Never mind answerin’,” the messenger pur¬ 
sued, “but take it from me, I’m tellin’ yer ter lay 
off that welfare business an’ tend ter yer own 
game. Right now, d’yer understand? Yer dirty 
—little—piker!” 

He pulled back his right arm as though to em¬ 
phasize the advice in a simple and familiar way. 
Then, as he still eyed his municipal superior, he 
slowly dropped his arm, turned and walked out. 

In the outer office he wiped the sweat from his 
brow with a sweep of the hand, and then stood as 
one dazed. “My Gawd,” he finally said. Then 
he put on his hat and coat and started slowly down 
the hall. In front of Mrs. Kent’s door he paused 
a moment, then opened it, and put in his head. 
He noticed that the deputy’s stenographer was 
sitting beside Mrs. Kent, who was leaning limply 


156 


Big Bill Speaks His Mind 

back in her chair, with a pair of very white hands 
resting on its oaken arms. 

“Just thought I’d tell yer,” he began, as though 
it were a matter of slight interest, “it’s all right 
about the committee—y’ know what I mean— 
what we were talkin’ about—all that stuff about 
the inspector an’ the bulls an’ everything.’’ He 
paused. “It’s all right,” he went on dreamily, “I 
just seen the commissioner, an’ he told me ter tell 
yer—” 

“But — but — ” Mrs. Kent faltered, rather 
weakly. “But—” 

The messenger was listening, but, while his face 
was of course “blank and easy,” it plainly dis¬ 
couraged any questioning of its statement of fact. 
As the seconds went on in silence, the little clerk’s 
lips began to twitch in the faintest sort of way, 
and her hand lifted as though searching for 
something. 

Big Bill hastily withdrew his head. “Now I 
done it,” he said as the door clicked. “Gotta 
make good,” he muttered, with sudden determina¬ 
tion. 

In the elevator he made up his mind. “An’ I 
better get there first,” he added. 

As he hurried across the sidewalk, he brushed 
into a young man who stopped, in surprise. 
“Why, Bill,” exclaimed the Honorable James Van 


157 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

Tassel, alderman of Bill’s district, “you look as 
though you’d seen a ghost!” The cheery greeting 
in the young man’s clean cut features changed to 
a look of concern. They were friends. 

“Yeah—I seen one, all right,” said Bill, ner¬ 
vously. 

Van Tassel put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. 
“Can I help?” he asked. 

“No, Jimmy—this ain’t no alderman’s job. 
Only the leader can settle it. I gotta get Dono¬ 
van—an’ get ’im soon. Tell yer ’bout it to-night.” 
And they parted. 

A few minutes later Big Bill’s long legs were 
cork-screwed up in a pay-as-you-go telephone 
booth three blocks away. A sweaty nickel had 
gone on its rattling downward course, and the 
messenger’s mouth was glued into the mouthpiece. 
His eyes kept tab through the glass door on what 
went on outside. 

“Chelsea four-two-three-nine — yeah, that’s 
right. Hello. Is this the club? Who’s this? 
Oh, that you, Smoke? Say, this is Bill—you 
know. Yeah, that’s right. Say, listen. Is the 
chief there? He is? Listen. I wanta talk to 
him. Yeah, only a minute. Tell him it’s impor¬ 
tant.” 

Bill twisted and waited. 

“This you, Chief? Say, this is Bill—you know. 


158 


Big Bill Speaks His Mind 

Yeah. Say, Chief, I wanta get this to yer now, 
’fore anything breaks. I had a run-in with the 
boss. This mornin’. Yeah, just now. Oh, ’bout 
that Mrs. Kent—you know—the one that fixed 
up Brady’s wife w’en he was sick an’ the wife had 
a baby cornin’ an’ no money. Yeah, same one. 
Yeah, yer bet she’s all right!” 

Bill lowered his voice as a man passed the glass 
door. 

“Well, I don’t wanta tell yer now. I’ll be up 
tonight. But, say, this guy may be buttonholin’ 
Brannigan—that’s his leader, yer know—with 
some stuff about me—see? Insubordination, or 
some guff o’ that kind, ’fore I can get to yer. 
Then Brannigan’ll be tryin’ ter get me trans¬ 
ferred. An’ I wantcha ter get hold o’ Brannigan 
an’ tell him ter ferget it. That lousy little leader 
—huh—he’ll drop dead, Tom, if you tell him to! 
What?” 

The messenger’s voice was louder. 

“Yeah, it’s all right—honest ter God—you 
know me. W’y Tom, that guy don’t know 
enough to come in when it rains. You know why 
Brannigan got him made. Just got the swelled 
head, the way they all get at first. Thinks he 
knows it all. Oh, no—not charges—hell! Just 
chewin’ the rag. But he might. I’ll tell yer to- 


159 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

night. Yeah, I’ll be up sure. Will yer, Chief? 
Will yer—sure? Thanks—that’s fine. S’long.” 

Bill hung up the receiver, extracted himself 
from the booth, and took a swipe at the new crop 
of sweat on his brow. The incident was closed. 
For Donovan was “on”—Donovan, the leader— 
the “big” leader, bigger than Brannigan—and of 
course bigger in the Department of Poles and 
Pipes than any dude commissioner who might be 
the titular head thereof. 

“That’s a reg’lar feller,” sighed Big Bill as 
he started back toward the great gray building, 
with its daily grist of human ups and downs. He 
took up a faster walk, as though shaking off a bad 
dream. “That settles it,” he repeated. “Lucky 
I got a leader—a reg’lar leader.” 

Then, as he passed within the granite columns, 
“It’s good I didn’t show no excitement, though.” 


160 



FLANAGAN’S GETAWAY 

W HEN Flanagan, of the Woodchuck gang, 
got married to McGivney’s daughter, 
and then went off to Sullivan County with her 
for a couple of days, the police of the precinct 
breathed easier. When he came back to New 
York, they tightened their belts and began to look 
sharp again. So did Kelly, of the inspector’s men. 
Kelly, in particular, whose job it was to keep track 
of the Woodchucks, knew that a little thing 
like matrimony was not going to change Dan 
Flanagan. 

“Might as well expect Black Jackson to re¬ 
form,” he said, “—an’ he’s the main guy. No; 
once a Woodchuck, always a Woodchuck, until 
we stamp ’em out.” 

All this meant little to Flanagan, as he left his 
wife at McGivney’s place in Bleecker Street and 
started for the stables, to take out McGivney’s 
new two-horse truck for a day’s work on the West 
Street docks. McGivney’s place was a saloon, 
but he trucked a little on the side. That gave 
Flanagan his job; and Flanagan was working, as 
became a newly married husband. He was 
through with the gang—or so he thought. 


161 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

“S’long, Nell—back at noon for some o’ them 
ham and eggs,” he called up the stairs as he left. 
“Clyde Line docks to-day—right near by.” 

“All right, Danny.” 

He looked back, and he could see the deep 
mass of her red hair as it shone down the 
dark stairway. Ever since she was a kid they 
had called her Red Nell, because of her hair. 
Brown-eyed and tall, with a “reach that’d wrap 
a masher ’round a lamp post,” as her father 
once said, she was a good match for Flanagan. 
Light lovers had shied away from this limb of 
big Andy McGivney. And it had taken Flanagan 
all his years to win her—for he had loved her 
since they went to school together. When she 
finally took him, they were married next day. 

“Back at noon,” echoed Red Nell, and then, 
as the door closed below, she caught her breath 
quickly, with a queer pain of pure joy as she real¬ 
ized how carefully her lover had planned for his 
noon-day visit. 

Outside it was a nippy March morning, as 
Flanagan tooled the blue roans out of the stable. 
Their coats shone, their rounded chest muscles 
quivered and billowed, and their heads swung up 
and down in great rattling arcs as they felt out 
the new harness and almost broke into a trot at 
the turn. Back of the lines and the new red paint 


162 


Flanagan’s Getaway 

of the truck’s high seat stood Flanagan, feet wide 
apart, balancing to the jolting with the grace of 
a plains rider. A rough-neck truckman—but 
above the broad-shouldered suppleness there was 
a face that had come from somewhere beyond the 
lineage of the waterfront. The square jaw, blue 
eyes, high forehead and curly brown hair might 
be noticed for themselves, but the clean-cutness 
of the whole was what made people look twice at 
Flanagan. From somewhere, over the seas of 
the ages, this young ’longshore terror had caught 
a ricochet of a bit of the blood that had made 
knights and charioteers — blood of the loose- 
limbed who loved strongly and fought freely, who 
rode hard, and even, perhaps, snatched chariot 
races out of the jaws of death in gladiatorial vic¬ 
tories. You could not prove any of this by Flan¬ 
agan. He had a hazy idea about a grandmother 
in Greenpoint, and there the ancestral curtain fell. 

As he swung into Christopher Street, Flanagan 
saw two men on the far curb who started a train 
of thought, and in a moment his decision was in 
the reins. He swerved his horses in toward them. 
Then, out of the tail of his eye, he saw two other 
men as he passed, and his face hardened. Patrol¬ 
man Jameson was swinging his club reflectively as 
he gossiped with Kelly, in plain clothes, on the 
corner. 


163 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

“If he’s back, he’ll be mussin’ us up around here 
before night,” Jameson was soliloquizing. 

“Sst! There he goes now!” Kelly whispered, 
as he stood stock still, while his eyes followed the 
Flanagan equipage toward its goal at the curb. 
Jameson instinctively clutched his club tighter as 
he took in the picture. The four eyes went with 
the truckman and they took in every detail, in 
their policeman’s once-over of possible trouble. 
Only the man in uniform seemed nervous. Kelly 
was pulling his moustache, thinking. They were 
both silent. As Flanagan neared the curb he 
twitched his shoulder blades, just a quiver, as 
though to shake off the eyes that he knew were 
boring into him from behind. Then he brought 
up the roans with a dash and a rattle, and the 
hunted look went out of his face. 

“Ee-o-oh—Bill!” The truckman’s halloo broke 
into a wide grin of white teeth and blue eyes. The 
men on the curb turned sharply. 

“H’lo, Dan!” It was the older of the pair 
who recovered first. “Well, where did yer get 
the—fer the luvamike, Dan!” 

Big Bill stared out from under his slouch hat 
as though there were fairy tales abroad. He was 
not easily surprised—not he, Big Bill Baker, mes¬ 
senger to the city government and gray in the 
service. But this was a new one. Flanagan truck- 


164 


Flanagan’s Getaway 

ing for McGivney—Dan Flanagan, working! For 
a second Big Bill thought the gangster had 
“lifted” the truck and pair and was flashing them 
in broad daylight for very deviltry — he had 
played more impish pranks than that, this tongue 
of the Woodchucks’ flame! Then Bill saw the 
truck was McGivney’s and he knew it was no 
“job.” Nobody jobbed McGivney. 

“But—” 

“Aw, it’s all right, Bill, I’m workin’! Hello, 
Alderman!” Flanagan turned to the younger 
man, more quietly. 

“Hello!” responded the Honorable James Van 
Tassel, cheerily and with lively interest. For 
three whole months he had been “Alderman Van 
Tassel,” and this new world of sidewalks and 
politics was still a cocktail of adventure to the 
lad from the silk-stocking district on Murray Hill. 
He had early heard of Flanagan — for who 
hadn’t? Then he had met him, through Big Bill, 
and had taken a fascinated liking to this wild 
thing from the docks. Finally, when Kelly had 
“turned in” Flanagan only the week before, on 
suspicion of a “job” of which he was innocent, 
Van Tassel’s testimony as a character witness 
had resulted in his instant discharge at the hands 
of a marvelling magistrate. That had deepened 
the friendship into fealty for life. 


165 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

“Just thought I’d tell yer—” Flanagan rested 
his elbows on the high seat and looked down, 
grinning. “Yer see—well—” Flanagan grinned 
again. 

“Well what?” demanded Big Bill. 

“I got married,” said Flanagan helplessly. 

Big Bill looked incredulous, then suspicious. 
Van Tassel, who knew no better, believed it. 

“Yes, I did,” persisted Flanagan, seriously. “I 
did, Bill. It’s McGivney’s girl. Nell.” Fie 
looked so sad that Big Bill's eyes began to 
twinkle. Then the messenger let go a chuckle. 
Then Van Tassel laughed outright. And then 
Flanagan let oh steam with a laugh like a mega¬ 
phone. “Ha, ha, ha!” The roans started for¬ 
ward in alarm. “Hey, you—whoa, there ! Whoa, 
now, babies—” The sun beat down on the agi¬ 
tated wedding party, the roans reared and plunged 
clumsily, the harness rattled, and the March wind 
wafted the wedding news into electricity. The 
spark of the gayest bulletin of life played about 
the stone curb in Christopher Street. 

“Yer big—yer big—I dunno what!” Big Bill 
reached up and made a wide swing at the truck¬ 
man. Under the slouch hat his eyes were shining 
in a most unusual way for Big Bill. 

“Well, that was all—thought I’d tell yer!” 
Flanagan swung the roans into the street and rat- 


166 


Flanagan’s Getaway 

tied off toward the docks, laughing as he went. 
He was pleasant to look upon, was Flanagan— 
when he laughed. 

As he passed the corner, something told him 
to glance backward to the left. On the sidewalk 
the man in uniform was standing still, gripping 
his club, and watching him. And, a little ahead, 
Kelly was walking swiftly along—easily, quietly, 
with eyes to the front—but abreast of the truck 
and going in the same direction. Flanagan’s sun¬ 
shine suddenly turned to winter. “Like dogs, 
they are,” he muttered, as the hate spread over 
his face like a cloud—“dogs.” His lips were shut 
tight, and he stood stiffly, rigidly. “Always on 
a feller’s neck,” he mumbled. “Ah, for a good 
soak in the jaw—” but he felt pinioned, bound and 
dumb. It was the same old blind alley, already. 
He drove on. And Kelly followed. 

Back at the corner Big Bill was voicing to Van 
Tassel his own disapproval. “There he goes,” 
he rumbled, as he pointed out the departing detec¬ 
tive. “Kelly, tailin’ him again. Why don’t he 
give him a chance? Battin’ him around a whole 
year now, pickin’ him up when he ain’t done 
nothin’—an’ when the Woodchucks pull off a real 
job they get away clean, ’cause the bulls ain’t 
there. Only makes ’em worse, that sort o’ dumb¬ 
bell work.” 


167 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

Van Tassel nodded. 

“Well, he won’t get nothin’ on Flanagan now,” 
said Big Bill suddenly. “Not if I know Nell 
McGivney—she’ll keep him straight!” 

Upstairs at McGivney’s, some time past noon, 
Red Nell was watching her husband finish his 
matrimonial ham and eggs. “With me ears 
sewed back behind me head,” he had declared 
when she inquired for her lord and master’s 
approval. “I’m divin’ in.” A moment later he 
was rolling a cigarette in great contentment, his 
chair tipped back. He looked across the table, 
and he remembered again the day when the 
teacher had carried a bunch of black-eyed Susans 
to school, and how he had joked Red Nell about 
them, as he matched up the flowers to her own 
colorful eyes and hair. What kids they were! 
And now—he smiled his happiness as he moved 
nearer. “Say, Nell, ain’t things breakin’ fine!” 
he sighed. “Now if I could just find a way to 
pay up the alderman for that favor—he’s white, 
that guy! If ever I get a chance—but he’ll never 
need no help from me—with all the money an’ 
friends he’s got—” Flanagan looked suddenly 
sober as he thought—perhaps something more 
than sober. He had forgotten to light the 
cigarette. 

“Ah, Danny, we don’t need all that.” Her arm 


168 


Flanagan’s Getaway 

was on his shoulder. “We got ourselves—ain’t 
that enough?” 

“But it ain’t that, it’s—” He stopped. 

“Y’mean—?” She had risen and backed off 
a step, and her brown eyes were looking straight 
through him and reading all. 

“Yeah, I mean the bulls,” he blurted out. “I 
don’t mind them boob cops—lookin’ leery when 
I go by, with their toy sticks—but Kelly an’ his 
partner been tailin’ me all the mornin’. Then 
buttin’ in on O’Hara at the Clyde Line, with ques¬ 
tions like I was framin’ a job—ah, fer one good— 
I’ve a mind ter—” 

“Danny!” Red Nell’s eyes were wide with 
alarm. “Give up that talk—give it up—now! 
Kelly’ll get nothin’ if you don’t give him nothin’. 
Let him rubber—let him—” 

“An’ Jackson’ll be around—then they’ll be 
tailin’ fer keeps—yeller dogs—Jack’s a pal, if he 
ain’t no more!” 

“Oh!” Nell’s hands went to her face as though 
to save her from seeing something. “Oh-h— 
Black Jackson,” she murmured. “Yes—he’ll be 
around.” 

Then her husband was beside her, with his arm 
about her. “There, girlie—” Flanagan, just 
married, was in a new kind of trouble—a brand 
new kind, that he didn’t know how to handle. 


169 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

There were tears in his wife’s eyes. He stood 
helplessly. 

“Danny,” she gulped. “Danny. I want you 
to promise me. To promise—” her voice was 
clearer. “If you do anything—if you do—do it 
to Black Jackson—not Kelly. I know—it’s hard. 
They’ll hound you. But Jackson—he’s worse— 
he’s wrong. Danny—if you go with Jack, it’s 
agin me—it’s agin—Red Nell.” Her head was 
up and she was looking straight through him 
again. “Are you—with me? Or agin!” 

“Ah, I’m with yer, Nell—I’m with yer—” he 
gripped her to him as though he would break her. 
And then he turned away roughly and pounded 
down the stairs and out, seeing nothing. 

Red Nell sat long, as hope fought with despair. 
She knew the ways of the wild things. Once a 
Woodchuck, always a Woodchuck; the only end 
was death in gun play, or a “ride up the river” 
to Sing Sing. It was a bad gang. Not yet had 
one of them turned straight and lived. If he tried, 
he was hounded out of his job by the cops, and 
went back to the gang. Or he disappeared; and 
the gang was not informative on such subjects. 
Yes, Jackson would be around—ugh! She shud¬ 
dered at the thought of the shifty-eyed leader who 
stopped at nothing to gain an end. He would be 
tailing her man as closely as Kelly. But Jackson 


170 


Flanagan’s Getaway 

would act, where Kelly could only wait—Dan 
knew too much to be left unenlisted. There would 
be a show-down. Then she remembered the hang¬ 
out of the Woodchucks in Weehawken Street, the 
queer little house that the cops watched. Dan 
would be coming by there on his return trip to 
the stables around six o’clock. She sat up straight, 
and there was purpose shining in her brown eyes, 
the glow of deep fires that tuppenny lovers had 
shied away from. She would be there too—at 
six. She went about her little housekeeping 
quietly. The only noise was downstairs, in the 
“store,” where McGivney was slaking the after¬ 
noon’s business in his usual easy, talkative fashion. 

As Flanagan jogged his truck into West Street 
for the afternoon’s work, with Van Tassel return¬ 
ing to his troubled thoughts from time to time, it 
was not the strangest thing in the world that Van 
Tassel himself should have been talking about 
Flanagan only a scant block away. Telepathy has 
turned her eerie tricks at far longer ranges than 
that. Van Tassel was also bound for West 
Street, and no less certainly because he was riding 
in the family coupe of the Skeffingtons, of Wash¬ 
ington Square, instead of one of McGivney’s 
trucks. All the way from the old red and gray 
house by the Washington Arch he had come, with 
Miss Sally Skeffington alone in the carriage beside 


171 



Van Tassel and Big Bill 

him, and that of itself was enough to make the 
trip seem all too short to young Jimmy Van Tas¬ 
sel. In a moment now they would be at the ferry, 
and she would be on her way to that wedding in 
the Oranges. Jimmy was telling the story of his 
meeting with Flanagan in the morning. 

“He’s a fine fellow,” he said with enthusiasm, 
“and now that he’s married he’s sure to go 
straight!” 

“Oh—how much you know about it!” From 
the dark background of the carriage Sally’s profile 
had turned toward him, just a little. He glanced 
at the vision of black hair and furs, at the black 
eyes that danced so mischievously above the saucy, 
pointed nose and the saucier, pointed chin. Then 
he found it impossible not to look a moment 
longer at the rosy little blessing that winter had 
placed upon the pretty cheeks of Miss Sally Skef- 
fington, of Washington Square. It seemed as 
though they became a little rosier, as their owner 
suddenly lowered her dark lashes. 

“Why, I don’t know so much, but—” Jimmy 
was laughing. Then, of a sudden, he was nearly 
doing more. He caught his breath sharply as he 
paused, the laugh disappeared and his lips quiv¬ 
ered, uncertainly; and then—but then the car¬ 
riage suddenly stopped, caught in a press of trucks 
backed up from the dock traffic, and the footman 


172 


Flanagan’s Getaway 

was standing by the window asking if they could 
wait. 

“Yes, for a few minutes,” answered Sally ner¬ 
vously. She looked away through the window, 
desperately, for any straw to clutch at that would 
turn the talk into safer channels. They were 
opposite an ill-paved little street that seemed to 
start bravely and then sigh as it suddenly expired 
only a block away. 

“What a funny little street! I never saw it 
before,” she exclaimed rapidly. 

“Oh, yes,” responded Jimmy vaguely. He was 
still trembling. “Weehawken Street. Funny 
little house in there. Oldest house in Manhattan. 
Quaint little thing, with its curved roof and big 
eaves.” 

“Oh, I’d like to see it—could we?” 

Jimmy hesitated. He did not know so much 
about the inhabitants of the little house. Then 
gradually a great thought came to him. Sally 
would be returning from that wedding—at six 
o’clock, she had said—and the carriage would 
meet her at the ferry. He could meet her too, 
and perhaps—why not? Jimmy plunged into the 
opening with the alertness of a good half-back. 

“Yes, we could see it—today—on the way 
back! Just leave the carriage at the ferry, right 
across West Street, and I can show you about in 


173 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

no time, and then we can go back to the carriage, 
and—” 

Sally was silent. The jam of trucks ahead was 
moving forward again, crunching and venturing, 
little by little, as ice packs break up in the great 
rivers. They started to move with the current. 

“All right!” Sally suddenly gave a queer little 
laugh of adventure, and Jimmy joined in, with all 
the agitated delight that greets an unexpected 
legacy. 

Near the ferry house they were held up again, 
caught in the swirling sea of trucks and drays 
that covered every foot of the broad sunlit way, 
from dock to curb, as far as the eye could reach. 
From the north and from the south came the 
trucks, from the side streets and from the docks. 
Near the ferry there was some sort of order, at 
the hands of a lone traffic cop, but to the occupants 
of the little carriage the tangle of the squirming 
truck-monsters looked boundless, hopeless. Above 
them, a gallery of masts and spars peered down 
over the shed-heads of the docks. From beyond 
came a creaking of cranes, monotonously. An 
outbound liner’s hoarse call to the seas spread its 
penetrating vibration over the whole teeming 
mass. Yet the truckmen seemed to take the mess 
easily as they swayed and steered, with a chirrup 
here, a sharp pull-up there, and periodical volleys 


174 


Flanagan’s Getaway 

of lusty blackguardism as hub crowded hub every¬ 
where. Sally’s wondering eye fell upon a figure 
standing astride a loaded truck newly painted in 
red. The overalled driver swung his blue roans 
swiftly into a waiting niche, then relaxed the reins 
and waited, with an easy grace born of long 
practice. 

“Oh, look at that big fellow!” she exclaimed. 
“It’s wonderful the way some of them handle 
their horses.” 

Jimmy looked, then looked again. “Why, it’s 
Flanagan! The very same—” Then they both 
looked, in silent attention. Out of the jumble of 
vehicles oozed another man, afoot, who looked 
powerful and wiry, in his black clothes and dark, 
long-peaked cap. He moved toward the truck, 
quietly and unobtrusively, as a worm leaves the 
ground. Now, with hands in pockets, he was 
looking up and accosting the truckman from the 
pavement below. The pair in the coupe could not 
hear what he said. But Flanagan heard, every 
word. 

“Well, what’s the dope? Have yer quit us?” 
Black Jackson was asking the question that had 
waited three days. The eyes that shone like coals 
against the sallow face shifted to right and left 
as they searched for the answer. 

Flanagan stood in silence for a moment as he 


175 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

looked down. He had not expected such direct¬ 
ness, though he knew Jackson’s way. Nor was 
he ready for this tone of unfriendliness; they 
were pals. He did not know that McGivney had 
kicked Jackson out of the saloon in Bleecker 
Street half an hour before, with Red Nell watch¬ 
ing grimly from the window above. So he 
suddenly grinned. 

“What’s the matter, Jack?” 

“That’s for you to say.” 

Flanagan grinned again — this time for a 
reason. “Come up on the truck. I got some 
dope for yer.” He cocked his head to suggest a 
secret. The man on the pavement hesitated, then 
clambered up, as the truckman dropped the reins 
lightly on the high seat and faced him. 

“Now keep yer hands out o’ yer pockets,” said 
Flanagan quietly, in a different tone. “Whaddaya 
want?” 

Jackson realized the manoeuvre at the same 
time that he sensed the adjacency of Kelly, in 
plain clothes, wandering with apparent aimless¬ 
ness among the trucks just a few yards away. 
“Are yer wid us or agin us? Y’kin answer that 
now.” He spat out the words in an undertone 
as he looked about. 

“I’m workin’,” said Flanagan steadily. The 
man who had been his pal shifted his body with 


176 


Flanagan’s Getaway 

his eyes. He was spotting the whereabouts of 
the traffic cop, before he should descend. But his 
right arm, moving backward an inch, looked like 
something else. There are times when action tar¬ 
ries not on guesswork—not if you know your man. 
The truckman’s long leg suddenly tangled with 
those of his suspected assailant, while his arm 
went straight to the gang leader’s throat. u Lk!” 
The dark man gulped and gurgled, as he felt the 
truckman’s clutch and bent backward. Flanagan 
was frisking him for the gun that wasn’t there— 
not yet, he thought—and Flanagan’s spare knee 
was finding good leverage under his opponent’s 
ribs. Jackson suddenly rolled off the tail of the 
truck and into a muddy left-over of last night’s 
rain that lay pooled on the pavement below. 
There was a splash, followed by instant recovery 
as the thrown man floundered to his feet. Two 
nearby truckmen looked on complacently, with 
professional approval. Flanagan waited. A mud- 
smeared face under the cap that had stuck on 
tight was looking up at him now, and it blazed 
with the hate of a wharf rat at bay. 

“Yer won’t be workin’ termorrer,” spluttered 
the Woodchucks’ leader, and his teeth showed 
white for a second. Then he slid off through the 
trucks, in a swift zigzag. Kelly, pulling his 


177 


Flanagan’s Getaway 

moustache, was watching from the other direction 
in plain view. 

Flanagan turned with a jerk, in time to see 
Kelly hesitate, then move slowly away himself. 

“The bulls again.” He shuddered, as he 
thought of what he might have done. “On yer 
neck—ev’ry minute.” He was white. 

“Hey, there—get a move on yer, red truck— 
wake up!” The traffic cop was bawling over the 
line of trucks behind. The jam was in motion 
again. Flanagan picked up the reins. But his 
hands shook as he tooled the roans into the clear¬ 
ing ahead. “God help me,” he muttered. “Cops 
everywhere. An’ now it’s Jack gets me, or I get 
him, by night. An’ either way it’s —” His face 
turned whiter. “There ain’t no getaway,” he 
whispered as he drove on with the current. 

In the coupe Miss Sally Skeffington, of Wash¬ 
ington Square, was trembling too. So was Jimmy, 
though in a different way. They had seen it all. 

“Oh—I don’t think I—like him—your Flan¬ 
agan,” faltered Sally. 

“The other man must be a no-good,” defended 
Jimmy. “And what a throw—oh, what a beau¬ 
tiful throw!” He was tingling with it. The 
carriage moved on toward the ferry. 

When the hour of six arrived there had been 
time enough for a heart-to-heart report from 


178 


Flanagan’s Getaway 

Kelly to the inspector. “Yes, it looks like trouble,” 
that harassed official had agreed. “Another muss 
and I’ll be looking for rooms in Tottenville, the 
way the commissioner’s handing out the transfers 
nowadays—unless we clean up.” He thought a 
moment, then gave his orders, quietly. “Six men, 
Kelly. You’re in command. Post ’em where you 
like, and—they won’t be expected to start saving 
ammunition—if—” 

The afternoon had been long enough, as well, 
for McGivney’s new truck to make its delivery 
downtown and begin its return trip to the stables. 
But McGivney’s driver seemed out of tune with 
the homeward bound alacrity of his fine pair of 
roans. “I’d oughta packed a gun,” he was saying 
anxiously, quite to himself. But his jaw was set, 
beyond even the joggling power of the West 
Street cobbles. 

And, most assuredly, six o’clock was time 
enough for a wedding in the Oranges to find its 
flowery way into family history and even return 
its radiant guests to the sombre confines of brick- 
bound Manhattan. It was just at the stroke of 
six that young Jimmy Van Tassel helped Miss 
Sally Skeffington out of the very proper little 
coupe that stood at the Christopher Street ferry 
gates, and set his face against the tide of com¬ 
muters that was trickling through the truck lanes 


179 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

and funneling into the ticket chopping recesses 
of the old ferry-house. 

“Look at them!” he exclaimed, “hurrying, 
hunted—what a life! And there are more in the 
tube!” 

“But think of the trees and flowers they go to— 

and we-” She motioned toward the passing 

trucks and the irregular, squalid line of low build¬ 
ings the other side of West Street. They could 
just make out the blurred forms of the brick line 
in the gathering darkness. Here and there a 
lonely looking arc light, high up, shed its garish 
glow over the scene. To the north the white spars 
of a coastwise freighter stood out ghost-like 
against the dark mass of the great piers beyond. 

‘I didn’t know it would be so dark,” said 
Jimmy, “but we can see the little house near by, 
and perhaps peek in a window, and be back in a 
few minutes—if you’d like to?” 

“Surely—let’s go!” 

“And I’ll show you the trees and the flowers, 
too,” continued Jimmy, with sudden inspiration, 
as he guided her carefully through the rattling 
truck traffic. 

“Ah, here we are,” he proclaimed. “This is 
Weehawken Street.” 

They were at the beginning of the little way 
that starts so hopefully north from Christopher 


180 



Flanagan’s Getaway 

Street and then stops suddenly, abashed, as it 
meets Tenth Street, foreteller of the deadening 
desert of numbered streets beyond. “And there’s 
the little house,” he added, as they strolled in a 
few feet. “Built before the Revolution, and yet 
it’s all wood. See the old wooden stairs that run 
up the outside of it, under the big eaves—as 
though some one had just slapped them sideways 
against the face of the house, then nailed them on, 
slantwise, and left them there. And the other 
side of the house is West Street itself—it’s barely 
thirty feet between the two streets 1” 

The small street looked dark and forbidding. 
The solitary light at the far end made little head¬ 
way. Only the yellow rays of the hooded saloon 
windows beside them gave promise of life. But 
there were no lights to illumine the middle of the 
short block. It was hard to see the little house 
at all. Jimmy looked on, dreaming quietly. He 
knew his old New York and could dream it. But, 
more than that, he knew now the taste of the 
seventh heaven that came with the fair presence 
beside him, and he felt as though they stood there 
alone, just he and she, in this queer dark world 
that thrummed with the city’s roar. 

“Yes, trees and flowers,” he mused. “The little 
house had its maples, and its flower garden on the 


181 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

river’s edge, once, until they built a prison near 
by and the convicts-” 

“Oh!” Sally suddenly started and came closer. 
A man coming from behind had brushed against 
her. Jimmy looked up quickly. There were two 
of them, in peaked caps, slouching along with 
hands in pockets. They were young and husky. 

“Where d’yer get that convict stuff?” snarled 
the nearest, over his shoulder. The other stopped 
and turned. 

“Yer big dude—gwan back where yer belong— 
there ain’t no convicts ’round here.” He stood 
insolently. It began to look like picking a fight. 
Jimmy started to move away. “I think I’d better 
take you along,” he whispered to Sally. “They 
seem ugly, as though they were looking for 
trouble.” 

“Yeah, yer better get out,” followed the voice, 
“an’ take yer bum doll with yer.” Jimmy winced, 
as Sally clung tighter to his arm. It was hard to 
stand this. He walked faster. Then, unex¬ 
pectedly, the other voice sounded truculently, 
right in his ear, from behind. “Yer big stiff— 
where’d yer get the cheesy skirt?” 

Jimmy turned as by instinct. There is a limit. 
He shot out his right arm in sudden fury, and his 
athletic suppleness went with the blow from his 
toes up as he found his mark. The young rough 


182 



Flanagan’s Getaway 

went down in a heap. If the matter could end 
there, as it should—but Jimmy had the fore¬ 
thought to look for the other man. He discovered 
him standing uncertainly on the curb, a yard or 
two away. As they faced each other neither 
could see the dark figure that sprang out from 
under the hood of the corner saloon. Only Sally 
saw it, and even as she gave a cry, the figure 
whipped out a little leather affair and flicked it 
silently, with a sure twist of the wrist, against 
the back of Jimmy’s head. He staggered, went 
suddenly limp, then fell with a muffled sound to 
the sidewalk and lay still. The three roughs 
broke and scattered, the man with the blackjack 
helping up the one who had fallen. 

Only Sally was left, standing there alone. She 
moved uncertainly toward Jimmy and then 
kneeled and bent over him. A white-aproned man 
from the grocery next the saloon was running up 
behind her. “I will help you,” he was calling. 
She could not hear him. Only the people running, 
everywhere—she could hear them all—their feet 
pounding, pattering, disappearing. 

A big man had jumped off the red truck he was 
driving through Christopher Street, behind her, 
and he was running too. But, differently from 
the rest, he was running toward her. “Yes, it’s 
him,” breathed Flanagan, as he stopped a second, 


183 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

beside her, “an’ it’s Jackson got him.” He looked 
up, started to run on, then jumped wildly into a 
dark niche in the wall as the crack of a pistol 
sounded from the other side of the little street. 
And now there was silence. 

Behind, in Christopher Street, a man in uniform 
was pounding on the sidewalk with his nightstick. 
Rat-tat-tat! Patrolman Jameson’s post was 
being “mussed up,” as he expected. The call of 
the nightstick came sharply, insistently around the 
corner. But Weehawken Street was silent, and 
deserted. There were no heads in the few 
windows that looked down on its ragged road¬ 
way. Sally bent lower. It seemed hours before 
the white-aproned grocer finally picked up Jimmy’s 
limp form and carried him around the corner as 
she followed. 

In the black niche in the wall a whispered con¬ 
versation was going on that was hardly friendly. 
“Put up yer hands, Flanagan!” Kelly crouched, 
with the blue barrel of a pistol shining in front of 
his plain clothes. The truckman, who had nearly 
jumped into his lap, put up his hands, slowly. 

“Well-1?” drawled the detective. Kelly was 
feeling his way. He had his men on both sides 
of the little street; and the West Street side of 
the Woodchucks’ house was covered as well. So 
were the nearby roofs. There would be no easy 


184 


Flanagan’s Getaway 

getaways this time. And here was Flanagan, in 
the teeth of the trouble, and delivered into his 
hands. But it looked bad; Flanagan, running to 
catch up with Jackson? Then they were together 
again! And so soon after that row on the truck 
in the afternoon? Yes, so soon after that! Once 
a gangster, always a gangster. Kelly knew. 
They’d stick against a cop, every time. Better 
feel out this guy and keep him close by for a bit. 
Flanagan was still panting. 

“Well, now yer got me, whatcha goin’ ter do 
about it?” He shifted a foot. 

“Steady, there!” The barrel came forward 
an inch in the dark. “Where yer goin’, Flana¬ 
gan?” Kelly asked the question quietly. 

“I’m goin’ ter get that dog Jackson, fer 
knockin’ out the whitest friend I ever had-” 

“Bunk,” cut in Kelly. “Chuck it.” 

Flanagan started to speak, then stopped, as 
he realized the futility of trying to convince his 
keeper. A cop was a cop. They eyed each other. 
Crack! Another shot from the other side of the 
street. The bullet sang by. Kelly, bottled up 
with a prisoner to guard, let his eye turn the frac¬ 
tion of an inch toward the spurt of flame that had 
marked a spot that needed attention. 

“Hah!” The truckman’s leg shot out with the 
precision of an old drop-kicker. Crack! Now 


185 



Van Tassel and Big Bill 

it was Kelly’s gun that had spoken—and missed; 
and Kelly was stumbling sideways. 

Flanagan leaped out of the niche and crept 
swiftly ahead along the walls, a passing blur as 
he slid through the shadows. He was headed 
for the little house. With a silent plunge he 
pulled up under the outside stairs and flattened 
himself against the wall. So far so good. 

Thinking fast, he muffled his breathing, with 
every muscle tense as he stood. He knew that 
Jackson was directly above him, on the landing 
at the head of the stairs, where the door to the 
second story opens—and well sheltered behind the 
solid boarding that fences in the little landing. 
He knew too that Kelly would be on him from 
the rear—Kelly, who was a cop and wouldn’t 
believe. Any second he’d come. And Kelly 
would shoot—like Jackson—and they were both 
dead shots. The old jam—caught cold between 
the two. Ah, God, there was no getaway now— 
if only he’d packed a gun! He listened. There 
was no sound from above. Jackson hadn’t seen 
him—or else he chose to wait. Uh? Flanagan 
turned his head. In the dark silence behind there 
was a rustle, a tiptoe footfall—yes, the faint 
beginnings of a shadow, coming slowly, close to 
the wall, pausing for cover at the projections, 


186 


Flanagan’s Getaway 

then sliding ahead. Kelly was taking no chances. 
But he was coming. 

Flannagan looked up and measured carefully 
the distance to the floor of the landing above him. 
There was no time to lose. He’d get Jackson 
now, if he could, and then—ah, well, he might 
give Kelly the slip—he might! But he remem¬ 
bered, with a shiver, Kelly’s marksmanship. The 
Woodchucks had learned that, to their cost. Any¬ 
way, here goes! He reached for the projecting 
edge of the landing’s floor, then sprang up and 
clutched it with both hands. Carefully, muscle 
on muscle, he lifted his body silently through the 
air until his arms were straight and the narrow 
edge was under his hands below him. He had 
done it—without a sound. Now, one leg up, 
then another, and he was there, crouching and 
balancing, outside on the narrow edge as he 
leaned against the boarded rampart. Still there 
was no sound. And Jackson was but a few feet 
the other side of that board fence, waiting. 

Suddenly he started, quivering, and nearly lost 
his balance. Jackson’s pistol had spoken from the 
other side of the boarding, less than five feet 
away. The shot had gone down into the street. 
A flash answered from the darkness below and 
another bullet sang near—Kelly must be close up. 
Well, if Kelly came closer, Jackson would drill 


187 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

him dead as he stood—there was clear range 
from the landing. With a glance over nis shoul¬ 
der, Flanagan saw the flicker of a shadow moving 
out from behind a wall. Well—why not? Let 
Kelly get his. That would leave only Jackson to 
handle. 

But then something flashed through Flanagan’s 
head—a mere streak of a thought, an instinct— 
but it was a rending, compelling thing, and it 
came straight out of a little new home over Me- 
Givney’s saloon—“if you do anything, do it to 

-” or else it came straight out of a thousand 

years ago. With a leap like a panther he vaulted 
up over the boarding and sprang down at the 
dark man with the gun on the other side as though 
he had come out of the trees. Jackson was near 
the door that gives on the rickety landing, aiming 
carefully at a moving shadow below. Cr-ack! 
As he fired, he saw Flanagan crashing down on 
him, and so it was that, by the grace of the turn 
of an eyeball, Detective Kelly lost a tip of an ear 
instead of his life. Even so, Jackson was quick. 
In a flash he was at the head of the stairs and 
plunging down them three steps at a time as he 
dodged from side to side. 

“Yer - -!” Flanagan sprang after 

him, with an oath, then as suddenly pulled up, 
quivering, on the top step. For the fraction of a 


188 





Flanagan’s Getaway 

second he paused. The gang’s old getaway— 
down the stairs and into the dark beyond, with the 
pursuer an easy target behind, to turn and fire 
into, point blank—the old cinch! And Jackson 
would do it—oh, yes, he would, would he? That 
had happened once before, to a cop—but not now! 
Flanagan’s wits were working like lightning. As 
the gang leader reached the foot of the stairs, 
bounding, Flanagan gripped with his toes and 
then, with one long jump down from the landing, 
fell sprawling on his enemy’s shoulders. The two 
bodies twisted and fell together, and again a gun 
spoke. But this time it spoke true, in the jumble. 
One of the bodies groaned and crumpled. The 
other tore itself feverishly away, straightened up 
to a stoop and, as the peaked cap looked down, 
the hand that still held the gun pushed it forward 
and aimed it carefully at the still body on the flag¬ 
stones. 

It was fair enough that the little house should 
have a door at the foot of the stairs as well as 
one at their head. After all, the stairs ran up 
along the outside of the old house just because 
there was so little room for them inside, and the 
broad eaves were there to shelter them from the 
rain and snow that came to Manhattan even in 
colonial days. The little shore people builded 
well. For Flanagan they builded better than 


189 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

they knew, when they cut the doors through, 
above and below. As Black Jackson stood and 
aimed for his kill, the door at the foot of the 
stairs opened a crack and a pair of brown eyes 
shone through. Then suddenly it flew back with 
a bang, and a strange figure in skirts and with red 
hair atop its flaming motion, threw itself at the 
gang leader as he stood. He started, fired wildly, 
fled. Before he had gone ten feet, Kelly’s pistol 
from behind had dropped him cold and lifeless 
in the gutter. A clean shot. 

But, back at the foot of the stairs, Red Nell 
was taking into her arms and then into her lap the 
head that had so puzzled Van Tassel with its 
hint of a heritage that belied the waterfront. 
The eyes were closed, and there was a warm wet¬ 
ness spreading through the blue shirt where it 
opened at the neck. “Danny—Danny,” pleaded 
Red Nell softly. “Danny—are yer there? Ah, 

come back—my Danny—my own boy-” The 

glow had faded out of the brown eyes. They 
were soft, and begging, begging for that which 
returns not, once it has gone. 

When the little street had been cleared, and the 
reserves had ransacked the neighborhood for the 
last remnants of the Woodchuck gang that had 
been defeated and dispersed in fair fight, the cops 
made way for the ambulance that came clanging 


190 



Flanagan’s Getaway 

in from the world outside. “This way,” said 
Kelly to the surgeeon, “foot of these stairs.” 
When they lifted him in, Red Nell’s eyes looked 
into the surgeon’s, and straight through and 
beyond, in that way of hers. He knew the ques¬ 
tion they asked—the old question. “Perhaps,” 
he said hopefully. But he turned his head away. 

“He had guts,” said Kelly thoughtfully. “And 
he was straight, at last. But for him, I’d be— 
you’d better go along, girlie. Get in with him.” 
He helped her into the ambulance, with a rough 
kindness. Still he stood looking at the red-haired 
thing that clung to the surgeon as the ambulance 
jolted slowly out of the ill-paved street, then went 
clanging off around the corner. It was not until a 
cop came up to ask a question that he turned his 
head. Then he answered in a voice that was curi¬ 
ously husky, for Kelly. 

When Jimmy came to, in the grocery, after a 
few minutes of involuntary dreaming, he found 
himself on his back on a bedding of beets, his 
head propped up in a crate of lettuce heads that 
were labelled “solid,” with a piece of penciled 
cardboard. Also, he felt a bump on the back of 
his head, that ached and felt very solid indeed. 
Somebody was feeling of the bump, tenderly. 
Jimmy’s eyes were only half open, but he knew 
it was not the grocer’s hand. He sighed, and 


191 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

closed his eyes quickly. The hand was withdrawn 
from the bump. “Please do it again,” breathed 
Jimmy blissfully. 

“Come—wake up—sit up!” encouraged the 
grocer, patting the treasured bump. 

“Ugh!” Jimmy sat up. “Leave my head 
alone, will you?” 

But he was rewarded by a ride back to Wash¬ 
ington Square in the old-fashioned carriage, after 
the army of inquiring cops had filed in and out 
among the beets and lettuce heads. And, after 
all, there they were, alone, in the Skeffingtons’ 
coupe, trundling up the long slope from the river 
bank that had been trees and flowers, back in the 
colony days. Almost he forgot the bump that 
crowned the aldermanic head. And, strangest of 
all, as they rode on- 

But so many things have happened since those 
Weehawken Street days that it is hard to know 
where to begin. After all, it was quite a while 
ago—quite a little while. One thing comes back 
in memory when that saucy Sally, who is prettier 
than ever, rumples Jimmy’s delighted head and 
asks her aldermanic husband if she can feel of his 
Weehawken Street bump again—just once more, 
for luck! Then Jimmy steals a glance at his wife 
and he knows again what it is to be lucky. 

At such times they are sure to fall talking of 


192 



Flanagan’s Getaway 

their friends, the Flanagans. For Flanagan got 
well—yes, the old strain—it’s as tough as it is 
fine. It was weeks before Red Nell could take 
him home to the two-room flat that was waiting. 
But at last she got him back. And now—why, 
it was only the other day, of a Sunday, that Kelly, 
in his new captain’s bars, saw them on the other 
side of the street and came hurrying over, grin¬ 
ning. 

“An’ how’s the big boss truckman?” he laughs, 
bending down toward the red-haired toddler who 
looks so small as he stands there between Red 
Nell and her husband. “Sure, he’ll be drivin’ the 
roans himself before long. Haw, haw!” 

Then Kelly strikes a pose as he pulls his mous¬ 
tache and puts the old question. “Dan, when’s 
that corner shindy cornin’ off, so we can give the 
other feller a disorderly conduct an’ turn him in 
proper—after you’ve knocked his block off your¬ 
self? Just for good measure! Y’know, we’re 
still waitin’ for the day—every cop in the precinct 
wants the honor.” 

But Flanagan grins foolishly and says, “No, 
I’m workin’,” just as he always does. 

Then Kelly becomes serious. “Dan, you know 
we’re your friends, since Weehawken Street— 
every cop—you know it, Dan?” It’s the same 


193 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

question that Kelly always puts, almost patheti¬ 
cally, when he sees them. 

But Red Nell clings a bit closer to her big 
husband when Kelly speaks of Weehawken 
Street, and she just looks at him, as though she 
wants to be sure he’s really there. She knows 
how near it came to being—different. 


194 


THE STOLEN BAND 


B IG McCabe sweated and glared, as he leaned 
forward and tightened his suspenders. His 
collar and coat hung behind him, over the back of 
the chair. A band of dull red marked the place 
where the straw hat had gripped his fat fore¬ 
head. From the middle of the red band a white 
scar ran crookedly down to where his eyebrows 
met. 

“Why don’tcha cut out the hot air an’ get down 
ter business?” McCabe’s fist came down on the 
desk with a bang. “Jawin’ away th’ hull after¬ 
noon—yer make me sick.” He spat to one side, 
disgustedly, then looked up again, with chin pro¬ 
truding. 

McCabe was easily the biggest of the circle of 
aldermen that surrounded the desk by the window, 
in the southeast corner of the City Hall—the cor. 
ner where things aldermanic are “settled.” Out¬ 
side, the statue of Nathan Hale threw its silent 
shadow across the group. Inside, the aldermen 
threw their noisy threats about the room, as they 
quarreled and perspired. For this was the last 
meeting of the committee that decides where the 


195 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

brass bands shall dispense the Fourth of July 
music with which the city annually regales its peo¬ 
ple. The orders must go out tonight, and now it 
was a case of dog eat dog, to see which alderman 
got the most for the parks and squares of his 
own district. Thus patriotism progressed, even 
before the armies of the world began to march. 
It was late in June—and hot. 

“I don’t care whatcha do with the Bronx, I 
get the same bands I got last year, and that goes,” 
concluded McCabe, mopping his brow. 

“But you have three right in your own district, 
and there’s only one for the whole west Bronx,” 
piped up the little lawyer to whom the embattled 
voters of the west Bronx had entrusted their 
municipal cares. “I say it isn’t fair; it isn’t 
equity.” 

“Call it w T hatcha like,” replied McCabe, “I get 
the same as last year. Why don’tcha get one off 
Jones?” he added artlessly. “He could spare 
that Canarsie band. Nothin’ but mud flats out 
there, anyhow.” 

The instant vocal outburst that came from 
Jones at this suggestion raised a laugh that put 
the contestants at ease again, for at least a minute. 

“We gotta take care o’ McCabe’s district,” 
said the chairman, from the other side of the desk. 
“He’s always had three, an’ he needs ’em over 


196 



The Stolen Band 

there, the way they got people piled up in them 
flats. Alderman Van Tassel, how about you?” 
He turned to the young alderman who represented 
one of the midtown Manhattan districts. 
‘'Couldn’t you get along without a band this year? 
There ain’t many people up your way—just 
parties goin’ through to the country.” 

“No, I can’t,” replied Van Tassel. “We had 
a band in Washington Square last year, and the 
people there expect it again. I’ve just been 
elected, and I’ve got to make good. I know that 
a lot of my folks go out of town, but down in that 
end of the district a lot don’t. They stay right 
in the streets they live in, and some of them 
haven’t even the price of a ferry ride to Staten 
Island. Besides, I’ve laid out a special pro¬ 
gramme for this year’s celebration, and I can’t 
get along without a band.” 

The new alderman with the quiet voice and air 
of determination had already won his spurs at a 
recent meeting of the Board. He had wedged 
himself into a disorderly debate on a building 
regulation, and had shown such a competent 
knowledge of this abstruse subject that he had 
earned the respect if not the regard of his oppo¬ 
nents. He was listened to now with the same 
respect. 

“Well, we’ve got just so many to go ’round, 


197 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

an’ I don’t see how we can take care of every¬ 
body,” said the chairman. 

As the patriotic wrangle proceeded, it seemed 
to Alderman Van Tassel as though the only 
temper to escape ruffling was that of the sculp¬ 
tured patriot of ’76, who, with back turned on the 
city fathers within, held his outward gaze over 
the heads of the passers-by and into the years 
beyond. Van Tassel wondered what Nathan 
Hale would make of this miserable quarrel over 
brass band patronage. As he looked about the 
colonial lines of the great room, and then came 
back to the sweating circle of aldermanic avoir¬ 
dupois, he felt a rising disgust for the whole petty 
business. But, with those mothers and babies of 
his mid-town square before his eyes, he stuck it 
out. 

When the meeting broke up, McCabe had his 
three bands. That was established beyond doubt. 
The panic from Canarsie had subsided, and even 
the lawyer from the Bronx seemed resigned to 
one band instead of two. 

“It’s sure about my band, is it?” asked Van 
Tassel anxiously. 

“It’ll be all right, alderman; everything’ll be 
taken care of,” answered the chairman, “—pro¬ 
vided there’s no slip-up at the last minute, of 
course,” he added. 


198 


The Stolen Band 

As Van Tassel turned away, there went, in Mc¬ 
Cabe’s direction, the faintest quiver of a wink 
from the chairman’s expressionless eyes before 
their look fell to the papers on the desk. The 
younger man had wheeled out of the line of 
vision by as much as six inches when this 
happened. But six inches are enough, with prac¬ 
tice. 

A week later, as the Fourth of July sun sank 
behind the city’s housetops, a carpenter and his 
helper were hammering the last two-by-fours into 
place on the little band stand that had sprung up 
for the exercises in Washington Square. They 
had built the traditional raised platform of un¬ 
painted planks, surrounded by a slender railing 
and reached from the ground by a flight of 
wooden steps. Planted in the centre of a stretch 
of asphalt pavement, without grace of finish or 
design, there was little to suggest a shrine of mid¬ 
summer patriotism. It seemed more as though 
some passing giant had accidentally dropped an 
ugly pill box on the pavement and gone on his 
unsuspecting way. But the specifications of the 
city’s contract had been lived up to, and the stand 
would hold. That was enough. It was more to 
the point that the alderman had been sufficiently 
“regular” to see that the local and “regular” car¬ 
penters got the job. As members in good stand- 


199 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

ing of the district club, they had asserted, with 
good reason, that the alderman “had a right ter 
take care of his own, ‘stedda lettin’ some one else 
cut it up.” In years gone by, when the local alder- 
manic vigilance had been less energetic, some one 
else had from time to time “cut it up.” Even 
such passing patronage as the building of a Fourth 
of July pill box required watching, and Alderman 
Van Tassel had spent some hours in insuring the 
bringing home of this bit of bacon. 

He had also taken good care of the district 
decorator and the district undertaker, for the 
carpenters had no sooner left the stand than the 
favored decorator began its festooning with 
“regular” electric light bulbs and “regular” 
American flags. The regular undertaker followed 
close behind, as he noisily unlimbered his serried 
camp chairs—all regular—and placed them in 
rows on the waiting platform. 

When Van Tassel reached the scene an hour 
later, and stepped up on the platform, he felt a 
glow of satisfaction, as he realized how well the 
local talent had played their part. “Well, it’s all 
in the district,” he thought, “and it took a lot of 
time, but it’s good to be in the hands of friends— 
they see a fellow through.” He tested the firm¬ 
ness of the planks and the railing, examined the 


200 


The Stolen Band 

flags and the lights and the chairs, and then looked 
around. 

Back of the stand the taxis and touring cars 
were humming by through the great arch, a never- 
ending stream of returning vacationists, with 
another day of golf or the beaches linked into the 
chains of their placid pasts. To the south a foun¬ 
tain played, and an encircling fringe of mothers 
and babies and darting children watched the 
waters that rose and fell with the monotony of 
eternity. Near by, a deep crescent of row on 
row of park benches faced the stand, as seats 
face the stage in a theatre; across the flank, a 
white sheet, stretched between two trees, promised 
movies. Over all the place, in every corner, in 
and out of every nook and cranny, were the peo¬ 
ple from “that end of the district,” who had come 
for what might offer. They had filled the benches, 
to the last inch, and the overflow stood or wan¬ 
dered slowly to and fro—mothers and children, 
with here and there a knot of noisy youths, in 
caps with long peaks; or a man, alone with his 
pipe, on the outskirts. 

It was hot and still, and the leaves of the trees 
hung limp in the sultriness of the deadened air. 
A smell of tar rose from the asphalt, and blended 
with the odor of heated humanity in mass. From 
every quarter came the hum of a thousand 


201 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

tongues, punctured by the cries of the city’s child¬ 
hood, that will make a playground of any pave¬ 
ment, in any weather, once the parental strings are 
loosed. 

“What a mess!” gasped Van Tassel, and, 
“Lord help me,” he added, as he thought of the 
Fourth of July oration that reposed in his inside 
pocket. He had foregone a very particular invi¬ 
tation to the Berkshires, for that oration; since 
early morning he had perspired over it, alone in 
the big house in the “upper end” of the district. 
For the Honorable James Van Tassel had a tra¬ 
dition to maintain. Was it not writ large in the 
annals of his ancestry that a certain “Alderman 
Van Tassel” had served with distinction, and with 
eloquence, in those simpler days of a century ago, 
when slaves and rum and ruffles played their 
elementary parts, and a Mayor, Sheriff and Aider- 
men directed the destinies of another and smaller 
New York, now lost forever? There might be 
foreign tongues in Washington Square this night, 
and little heed to the doings of that 1776 Fourth 
of July that had spoken for itself; but he would 
deliver his oration with the dignity that the day 
deserved; there need be no shade of disapproval 
in the ancestral portrait that hung in the house 
on Murray Hill. 

The local committeemen, whom the alderman 


202 


The Stolen Band 

had appointed for the occasion, began to file into 
the stand, in twos and threes, with wives and “lady 
friends.” Badges of red, white and blue ribbon, 
from which bronz medals dangled importantly, 
hung from their lapels; the clasps bore the word 
“Committee.” The committee set about cleaning 
house of the small boys who swarmed over the 
stand as flies swarm over a lump of sugar. Big 
Bill Baker, whose great bony outline under his 
grizzled hair was a threat in itself, took charge 
of the chairs that would hold the band. 

“Now, yer’ll have ter keep out o’ here,” he 
rumbled from the railing, to the juvenile rebels 
below. “The band’s cornin’ any minute, an’ they 
gotta siddown.” 

“Gee, there’s a real band cornin’!” 

“Hey, mister, w’en do they come?” 

“Hey, give us a programme, will yer?” 

Big Bill allowed a dozen of the printed slips to 
fall from his hands to the storming party below, 
and gazed reflectively on the expected tussle for 
possession that instantly covered the asphalt with 
a wriggling pile of small legs and arms. He 
turned to the alderman. 

“Is that band cornin’ soon, Jimmy?” he in¬ 
quired. “These kids are keepin’ me pretty busy.” 

“It ought to have been here ten minutes ago,” 
replied Van Tassel, as he looked at his watch. 


203 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

“Well, I hope there’s no slip-up—I think yer’ll 
need a band to-night.” There was a kindly smile 
in the eyes that looked out so shrewdly from under 
the heavy gray eyebrows; for Big Bill’s affection 
for young Jimmy Van Tassel was a matter of 
long standing, and more than once it had found 
form in valuable “steering” to the young aider- 
man. As a messenger in the service of the city’s 
government, Big Bill was qualified to steer func¬ 
tionaries of even greater elevation than aldermen. 
“I s’pose yer got a speech fer them, Jimmy,” he 
added. 

“Yes, I have a little to say,” replied Jimmy 
modestly. 

“Don’t make it too long,” said Bill. “It’s a 
warm night, an’ they won’t want much-” 

“Whaddaya got there, Alderman?” broke in a 
voice at Big Bill’s elbow, “a big speech to knock 
’em dead?” The owner of the voice leered up 
unpleasantly from the camp chair. 

“That’ll be all right, Ketcham—when yer learn 
how ter run yer own election district, mebbe yer’ll 
know how ter make a speech yerself.” Big Bill’s 
instant reference to past failures quickly squelched 
the envious Ketcham, who had not forgotten his 
own aspiration for the aldermanic honors that 
had fallen to Van Tassel. 

“Never mind that feller,” said Bill, as he 


204 



The Stolen Band 

turned his broad back on the interloper. “But, 
look here, Jimmy,” and he lowered his voice, 
“have yer got that band hooked, so it’s really 
cornin’ ? That’s a tough bunch down in City Hall, 
y’know; they ain’t makin’ no presents to anyone.” 

“Yes, I’m sure it’s all right,” said Jimmy, but 
he looked nervously at his watch once more. “Per¬ 
haps I’d better start off now, with my introductory 
talk; that will keep things moving for a few 
minutes; then we can put on the singer—you 
know—that young fellow from the Crowbar 
Club, that meets over Curry’s?” 

“You’re the doctor, Jimmy,” said Bill. “Wait 
just a minute, though. I got a contract for yer— 
fer termorrer mornin’, an’ I might not have 
another chance.” 

“Can’t it wait?” asked Jimmy, with sudden 
annoyance. He had long ago learned that “con¬ 
tracts,” although ignored by the city’s charter, 
form the main stream of the alderman’s life; 
that “handing him a contract” meant the same 
thing as “getting a favor off him”—in other 
words, enjoining him to perform an errand for a 
constituent, that would later bring its reward in 
votes on election day. The errand might be any¬ 
thing from securing a bootblack license to adjust¬ 
ing a paving penalty. It might be getting a ticket 
for a watchman’s job, or obtaining the transfer 


205 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

of an attendant from one park to another. It 
might be any one of a thousand things that one 
man may do to help another man or woman, and 
that he may attempt with better chance of success 
if he be one of the city fathers—for the city 
fathers appropriate or withhold funds for city 
departments. Whatever its nature, its importance 
was primary. “Contracts” came first. With 
Jimmy their performance had become, by habit, 
almost a matter of real contractual relation, 
instead of favor. At times he was even told that 
he “owed” somebody a favor! Oh, yes, he knew, 
and he was “playing the game,” for all it was 
worth; but it seemed like rubbing it in, to “hand 
him” a contract just now, when he was on the 
threshold of his first Fourth of July speech. He 
showed his annoyance. 

“Yes, it can wait,” said Bill patiently, “but I’d 
like ter get it to yer now—I’d feel better.” 

“All right, then; make it quick, will you?” 

“I can give it to yer in a word. It’s old man 
Wynne—yer don’t know him? Well, I don’t 
wonder, he’s such a quiet ol’ feller, an’ gettin’ on, 
too. He’s been in the district ever since I can 
remember; reg’lar with his dues, votes right, an’ 
always good fer a dozen tickets fer the ball. He 
don’t come aroun’ ter the club much, but he’s one 
o’ the reg’lars. Works in the Dock Department, 


206 


The Stolen Band 

over by Red Hook; always been there—an’ never 
come fer a favor since I knowed him. Wants a 
transfer now, ’round the North River somewhere, 
ter be near home. It’ll give him more time in the 
afternoon. Oughta be easy to get. I have it all 
here on a piece o’ paper.” 

Bill took a crumpled slip of paper from his 
pocket and handed it to the alderman. 

“Yer won’t ferget it?” he said. “Oughta be 
’tended to first thing in the mornin’, soon as the 
commissioner comes in, ’fore some one else gets 
to him. It’s a partickler thing to me, Jimmy. 
If we had more like old Wynne; but the district’s 
changin’—they don’t grow that way now.” 

Jimmy was fidgeting. Contracts—always con¬ 
tracts! Always the selfish individual! 

Bill looked at him appraisingly. 

“Jimmy, I don’t have ter remind yer again? 
I want this bad. Y’see, my missus is interested. 
I wasn’t goin’ to tell yer that. She’s sort o’ 
cracked about the old feller’s little girl—little 
granddaughter, mebbe six years old—an’ when 
she ain’t feedin’ cakes to the kid, the old feller’s 
toddlin’ up an’ down the block with her, an’ they 
play together, an’ he’d like that extra hour to 
be playin’ with her. If we had any of our own 

-” Bill floundered among his feelings until 

he gave surrender in silence. 


207 



Van Tassel and Big Bill 

“Yes, I’ll look out for it, Bill,” said Jimmy 
quickly, sensing the big man’s confusion. “Now, 

I know we ought to begin.” 

After all, he had been delayed only five 
minutes. 

He turned and faced the crescent of perspiring 
humanity on the benches. As he leaned forward 
over the rail, he raised his hand in a gesture for 
silence. He turned to the left, then to the right, 
and then back again, with hand still upraised like 
the traffic policeman’s “Stop!” There was a 
slight lessening of the conversational hum. 

“Hey, that guy’s goin’ ter say sump’n!” piped 
up a cheerful note from below. 

“Yes, I am, son,” returned the alderman, in an 
uneasy undertone, looking down, “although you 
wouldn’t think so.” Then he looked out over the 
jumble of foreign faces before him. 

“Fellow Americans!” he thundered. 

“H’ray!” piped a high voice from below. 

“We are met here to-night to do fitting honor 
and reverence to the spirit of the fathers of ’76, 
to the freedom for which they fought and bled, 
to the heritage of liberty which they have handed 
down to us of the twentieth cent-” 

There was a tug at the alderman’s coat, and a 
hoarse whisper from behind. 


208 



The Stolen Band 


“Say, Jimmy, lay off that a minute; on the 
level; there’s trouble; let ’em wait a minute!” 

Jimmy turned, and found Bill confronting him 
with a small, squirrel-like man he had not seen 
before. They wasted no time. 

“Go ahead, Inspector,” said Bill. “Tell the 
alderman.” Then, turning his head, “Friend o’ 
mine, Jimmy—O K—and it’s a good tip he 
gimme.” 

With a practiced motion of the left hand, the 
inspector pulled aside the lapel of his coat just 
enough to disclose the blue and gold badge on his 
left suspender. 

“Park Department,” he said. “Alderman, 
you’re shy a band. Better let you have it right 
straight. Somebody’s trimmed you. Don’t know 
where it’s gone, but I do know that Manhattan 
is shy one band, and that’s yours. There’s 
nobody coming here”—he waved toward the rows 
of empty chairs—“no orders. It’s my job to 
check up, and I know. Now, there’s one way 
out,” he hurried on, “and only one. There’s a 
band up in Central Park, in the Mall, and no 
crowd at all—just a few, in and out, and a row 
of automobiles stopping to listen. I’ve just left 
there, on my regular rounds, and they’re wasted 
—might as well be on top of the Statue of Liberty. 


209 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

If you want a band, go up and get that one! Tell 
’em you’re the alderman; they’ll come, when they 
know that—if you talk to ’em good and stiff! 
Remember, it’s the aldermen that give out the 
jobs to the bands. We’ll get the change O K’d 
afterward—no trouble about that—the depart¬ 
ment wants the bands where the crowds are. Only 
you got to hustle!” 

“Well, I’ll be-” muttered Jimmy, under 

his breath. 

“Straight goods-” interposed Bill. 

“That’s all right. I believe it,’’ said Jimmy. 
He looked over his shoulder at the layer of 
humanity that covered the benches. 

“Ha, ha!” He suddenly laughed. “Well, 
they won’t get fed up on the spirit of ’76 just yet, 
I guess—they’re safe.” He pulled out his watch. 

“Look here, Bill, can you keep this bunch here? 
Turn on the singer, and the movies—anything! 
I’m going to get that band. Inspector, I’m much 
obliged to you. No, not a word. See you later.” 
And he leaped from the platform and made for 
the purring stream of taxis. As he reached the 
roadway and waited for the first empty taxi to 
wheel in to his signal, he heard a strident burst of 
nasal anguish issuing from the stand, and dis¬ 
tinguished the agonized words: 


210 




The Stolen Band 

“She may have seen—better dayees 
When she was—inner—prime ” 

He jumped into the taxi, and looked back. 

“-once upawn—ayee time.” 

As he picked up the words again, he listened. 

“Though by the wayside—she fell 
She—may yet —mend her wayees. 

Some poor old mothur-r-r—is waiting for her 
Who has seen-” 

The taxi was on its way, but Jimmy had time 
to notice the rapt attention of the audience, as 
the pride of the Crowbars tortured the still air 
above them. Then he fell into a baffling circle of 
reflections that took entire possession of him. 

As they swung into the park, in blissful dis¬ 
regard of speed regulations, and then drew up 
near the bandstand in the Mall, Jimmy jumped 
out jerkily and strode across the grass. With 
two violations of aldermanic ordinances already 
to his credit, he went straight to the unsuspecting 
bandmaster in the pavilion, and in five minutes 
had secured that worthy’s consent to a third viola¬ 
tion. It was not all done at once. There was 
perusal of the contract that called for two hours 
of music in Central Park and nowhere else, 
with inquiry, explanation, doubt, expostulation 
and capitulation following in quick succession. 


211 





Van Tassel and Big Bill 

Until finally he won. Perhaps these simple blow¬ 
ers and fingerers had sensed a madman in the 
very intensity of the attack. In any event, they 
had seen the red fire card which Jimmy had 
feverishly pulled from his pocket, with “Admit 
Hon. James Van Tassel Within Fire Lines But 
Not To Buildings,” printed on it in black letters. 
They knew he was the alderman—that was 
enough. And with a shrugging of shoulders and 
fatalistic lifting of instruments they submissively 
trooped off after this aldermanic apparition. 

At the roadway Jimmy found himself in pos¬ 
session of one band leader, fifteen men, and a 
taxicab. 

“Ve go. But ve don’t walk,” said the leader, 
with quiet finality. 

“No, you’ll ride,” shot back the alderman. 
“You’ll ride —wait and see!” 

But as the taxis went spinning by, one after the 
other laden with its fare, Jimmy began to glimpse 
failure. It was almost too late already. He had 
managed to stop one “empty”—and that gave him 
two taxis. But, to squeeze into two taxis all that 
musical tonnage that stood waiting so stolidly on 
the lawn? No—one look at the deep bellies of 
the bandsmen had told him it was no use. He 
glanced again, in desperation, at the half-dozen 
touring cars that still lined the curb. They were 


212 


The Stolen Band 


filled to the guards. He shot a last despairing 
look at the roadway—and then he stood, tremb¬ 
ling. A familiar vehicle was rounding the turn. 
As it came nearer, Jimmy marked the green of 
the car’s closed body, the bored corpulence of the 
blue-coated driver. Clang! A gong sounded, omi¬ 
nously. Jimmy leaped toward the baleful thing. 

“Oh, officer—stop, will you? Just a minute!” 
Jimmy was beside the front wheels, panting. 

As the patrol wagon came to a doubtful halt, 
the police driver peered carefully at this new 
form of highwayman. “Well?” he drawled. 

“I’m Alderman Van Tassel,” breathed Jimmy. 
“I am—really—here’s my fire card to prove it! 

And this band-.” He exploded the story 

of his patriotic troubles. 

“And you want me to drive ’em down—in 
this?” queried the cop incredulously as he jerked 
his head back at the body of the hurry-up wagon. 

“Yes—please—and quick! It’s city business, 

you see—and—and—please? 

As the cop looked over Jimmy’s head at the 
huddle of dubious bandsmen, a flicker of amuse¬ 
ment came into his eyes. “Look like a bunch o 
counterfeiters,” he ruminated. “Might do ’em 
good to be locked up.” He looked again into 
Jimmy’s pleading face as he shifted his tobacco 

213 



Van Tassel and Big Bill 

cud. “Pile ’em in,” he said with sudden decision. 
“Lucky I’m rollin’ empty.” 

In a jiffy Jimmy had his despairing cargo buried 
in the Black Maria and wedged into the two taxis, 
horns and all. Then he clambered up beside the 
cop. “Don’t wanta put you inside,” haw-hawed 
the charioteer of the law. 

“Could you—step on her a little?” asked 
Jimmy nervously, when the convoy had formed. 

“Could I step on her?” came the delighted 
response—“with the alderman beside me? Can 
a duck swim! Ah—h!” The cop reached 
down. ‘“Hold fast!” the big green bug crashed 
forward. With little snorts of self-assertion the 
taxis scampered after, in close column. 

Jimmy said afterward that the only reason they 
escaped collision and sudden death was because 
they shot up into the air at the start and never 
came to earth again until they hit Washington 
Square. Even the blowers were breathless, as 
they grasped the great horns that protruded at 
all angles from the speeding cars. They emitted 
an occasional “Gott,” and the fingerers allowed 
the escape of a few “Himmels,” as the side streets 
flashed by in a backsliding streak. But the cop 
said nothing when he suddenly stopped his quiver¬ 
ing machine at the edge of Washington Square. 
He leaned back and stuffed a new cud in his 


214 


The Stolen Band 

mouth, with the complete contentment that fol¬ 
lows a forbidden taste of the speed that sings. 
The taxis, still on their mettle, were behind him, 
churning noisily as they stood. 

With the hurried marshalling of the music 
makers in the undertaker’s chairs, the unlimbering 
of horns and tubes, and the downward stroke of 
the leader’s baton, the first notes of “East Side, 
West Side, All Around The Town” floated out 
over the benches. Jimmy noticed a sudden change 
in the audience. The mothers who had been 
languishing under the educational movies began to 
smile, the babies stopped crying, and here, there 
and everywhere, in twos, threes and dozens, the 
smaller boys and girls were dancing as though 
possessed. On the pavement, on the sidewalks— 
wherever the city’s children happened to be— 
there they danced, and were happy. 

“Say, that’s fine, Jimmy,” said Bill, as he leaned 
forward. “Look at ’em now—they’re cornin’ 
fine!” 

“Yes,” said Jimmy, as he suddenly remem¬ 
bered his undelivered speech. He meditated for 
a moment. “Bill, I’d like to give them just a 
little of that speech,” he said plaintively. “You 
know, I worked hard on it.” 

“Well, a little—sure!” said Bill. “Not long 
though. That patriotic stuff’s all right fer Car- 


215 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

negie Hall, but down here—well, look what the 
band’s done to ’em!” 

“But, good Lord,” retorted Jimmy, “we came 
here to celebrate the Fourth of July, not just to 
hear a band! Are we going to leave out the 
whole point of it?” He thought of that other 
Alderman Van Tassel, of a century ago. “We’ve 
got to have some regard for history, for the men 
who made us what we are—don’t you think so?” 

“Yeah—but not too much,” said Bill. “It’s 
gettin’ late.” 

Jimmy decided to venture his peroration; he 
had worked hardest on that, and thought it was 
rather good. At the end of the next piece from 
the band, he stepped forward, as he had earlier in 
the evening. 

“My fellow citizens,” he began. “I cannot 
allow these exercises to close without a word for 
the day we meet to celebrate.” His audience 
seemed good natured, if not attentive, and he 
went on. “We live in a great city, a city that 
has a great history. From the earliest days, when 
Hendrik Hudson sailed-” 

A hand from behind clutched the tail of 
Jimmy’s coat. He turned around angrily. The 
band leader stood apologetically before him. 

“Well?” snapped the alderman. 


216 



The Stolen Band 

“Two hours iss up,” said the leader. “In five 
minutes ve go.” 

“But can’t you wait just a few minutes more?” 
demanded Jimmy with exasperation. 

“Sorry. It iss the union,” responded the im¬ 
movable leader. 

“Too bad, Jimmy,” put in Bill soothingly, “but 
they have to do it. Union rules. Better let ’em 
give the Star Spangled Banner now, or they’ll 
walk out while yer talkin’.” 

Jimmy relapsed into a chair in despair. The 
band leader stepped into his place, looked to right 
and left, and raised his baton. As the brasses 
crashed out the deep notes of the anthem, Jimmy 
stood up straight as though by habit, and brought 
his heels quietly “to attention.” Over the heads 
of the band, he saw the mothers beyond, still 
talking, the knots of youths still discussing the 
relative merits of “Young Sharkey” and “The 
Kid,” and a man or two pulling on his pipe, alone, 
here and there. A woman stood up, and a few of 
the young men stopped talking, but the one 
marked effect of the nation’s hymn was the twist¬ 
ing and reaching of many human bodies preparing 
to depart. Even the peaked caps stuck close to 
the heads that, a little later, would wear the metal 
helmets of American soldiers in France. 

Jimmy felt a sickening disgust with the whole 


217 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

affair taking hold of him. He had been brought 
up to give reverence to the spirit of the nation, to 
its history, to the America of his ancestry and his 
schoolbook teachings; and the hymn of his coun¬ 
try was a hallowed thing to him. A hot wave 
of rising anger began to drown his disgust. 

Then he stopped to listen. Yes, there was 
singing—from somewhere. It seemed to come 
from below. He glanced downward, and then, 
for the first time in his life, the Honorable James 
Van Tassel was introduced to the public schools 
of his city. For the children of the schools had 
stopped their play and dancing at the first note, 
and were singing now, every one of them, singing 
at the top of their little lungs. They knew the 
words, as they knew the notes, and they went at 
it with the confidence of a drill that is an old 
story. As the energetic chorus swept over the 
stand, it seemed to Jimmy as though the children’s 
foreign faces had somehow changed, as though 
their dirt-smeared clothes of the pavements had 
taken second place in the picture. This was dif¬ 
ferent. The childish beauty of the singing was 
carrying everything before it, and the pure voice 
of a coming America was filling the very air with 
its melody. 

As the alderman’s eye fell on a small matter of 


218 


The Stolen Band 

a girl who, with chin tilted up, was singing with 
all the vim her little frame could master, he 
caught sight of an old man standing behind her, 
with bared head, whose white hair and beard 
stood out sharply against the shadows beyond. 
The man’s left hand rested on a cane, and with 
his right he held a dark felt hat across his left 
shoulder as he stood still, facing the music. 
Jimmy looked again at this unexpected figure, and 
then he looked away quickly, with a sense of 
rebuke, as he caught the man’s eye. But he stood 
up straighter, and he felt better, as the children’s 
chorus carried true to the end. 

When it was all over, the alderman and Big 
Bill walked away from the square together. They 
trudged along in silence, each lost in his own 
thoughts, until they reached the corner where 
their homeward paths parted. Bill put out his 
hand. 

“Well, we come out pretty well after all,” he 
said. “Pretty good show at that. Now, yer 
won’t ferget that contract—first thing in the 
mornin’, y’ know—yer won’t forget?” 

“No, I’ll be there,” replied Jimmy absent- 
mindedly. He was thinking of the finale of the 
evening. “Yes, I’ll be there,” he added impa¬ 
tiently, as Bill stood unconvinced. He turned to 


219 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

go, but paused irresolutely, as though hesitating 
to voice his own thoughts in this atmosphere of 
petty importunity. Then his curiosity got the 
better of him. 

“By the way,” he said, “did you notice an old 
man with a white beard, standing off near the 
fountain? He took off his hat when they played 
to the colors.” 

“The ol’ feller with the black hat?” 

“Yes—do you know who he is?” 

Bill’s gray eyes looked questioningly at his 
friend, all the way through him, and beyond. For 
a moment he stood as though doubting the good 
faith of the question. Jimmy looked up in sur¬ 
prise. Then Big Bill did a most unaccountable 
thing. His lips began to quiver uncertainly, and 
he looked away. 

“Why, Jimmy,” he said huskily, “that was old 
man Wynne. Yer know he’s a Civil War vet¬ 
eran. He was there with the little girl—I seen 
’em all the time.” 

And Big Bill walked suddenly away, without 
another word. Jimmy stood still in amazement. 

“Well—I’ll—be—damned,” he said finally, as 
he turned to the north. 

A few minutes later an undelivered Fourth of 
July oration was slowly falling, in torn strips, 


220 


The Stolen Band 


into a waste paper can two blocks away. “And 
that was the contract,” ruminated Alderman Van 
Tassel. “Yes, I’ll be at the Commissioner’s, and 
on time,” he muttered; then, with a sudden fierce¬ 
ness, “and I’ll get that transfer or bustl” 


221 


THE IMPERTURBABILITY 

OF PICK 


W HEN the hands of the big clock finally 
crept around to the earnestly awaited hour 
of three, Pick was just one of the legion of small 
boys that gushed forth from the old school in 
Greenwich Avenue. They came out pell-mell, 
shouting and pulling at one another, as they filled 
the sidewalk with knots of squirming freedom, 
and then gradually evaporated into the neighbor¬ 
ing streets for a long afternoon of play. But 
Pick was different. He was only nine years old, 
but he was already a business man, and he trudged 
off by himself, with becoming gravity. More 
than that, Pick was an athlete. He possessed a 
gray cap with a blue peak, and it came down over 
his tow head in a way that only the professional 
baseball player ever really acquires. You could 
hardly see the blue eyes and the rather pale face 
underneath; and the white shirt and patched cor¬ 
duroys clothed a frame that seemed scarcely as 
big as the cap itself. But Pick more than made 
up for these defects of stature by the professional 
indifference of his gait. No star could have 


222 


The Imperturbability of Pick 

crossed the Polo Grounds with more weary self- 
consciousness than Pick affected as he progressed 
from school to business. 

At the news-stand in Eleventh Street, Pick 
called, “H’lo, pop,” cast his little cube of old 
school-books into a corner, with a swing of the 
tight-hauled strap, and went to work. There 
were papers to be sorted, papers to be sold, busi¬ 
ness a-plenty to be transacted about this minute 
pebble in the stream of the city’s affairs. For 
Pick’s “old man” had only one leg, and there was 
some trouble about rheumatics in his back, besides. 
He had found it harder to move, as the days went 
by, and more and more he came to lean upon his 
little lieutenant, and to look for the hour when 
school closed and reinforcements should arrive. 
Then the work would go more easily. When the 
evening-paper rush was over, the two would board 
up the stand for the night and go home together, 
the “old man” with his crutches and Pick along¬ 
side. Not that it was much of a home—just a 
top-floor room in the little house in Bank Street— 
but “pop” had tried to keep it as it was before 
Pick’s mother died, and it was still home to them 
both. The “old man” would doctor his ills as the 
evening began, and watch Pick until the boy fell 
asleep over his school-books. Then they would 
turn in—and that would be another day gone by. 


223 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

It was late in May when the alderman of the 
district first came upon Pick, just squaring off at 
the afternoon’s business. Alderman Van Tassel 
was young and comely, with a pair of dark eyes 
that looked straight at you and usually laughed 
a little. He was of athletic build himself, and 
there were other ways in which he defied the 
established traditions of the city fathers. He 
looked down at Pick and hesitated. He had to 
look a long way down, and all he saw for sure 
was the gray cap with the blue peak. 

“Dispatch and Clarion ” said the alderman. 

Pick handed up the two papers, and left a wait¬ 
ing palm outstretched. 

“Haven’t you any later edition?” inquired Van 
Tassel. 

“Ain’t up yet,” came the reply, with business¬ 
like crispness. The palm still hovered in the 
neighborhood of Van Tassel’s belt. 

“Oh, all right,” and the alderman fed the cop¬ 
pers into the waiting treasury. He started to 
move off, and then changed his mind. 

“What team are you on?” he asked suddenly. 
Pick looked up suspiciously. But something in the 
alderman s eyes satisfied him, and he assumed a 
nonchalant air. 

“Jeffersons,” he replied carelessly. The busi¬ 
ness man had become the athlete. 


224 


The Imperturbability of Pick 

“That’s a good name,” continued Van Tassel, 
by way of conversation. 

“Yeah. Named after de jail-” Pick bobbed 

his head slightly toward Jefferson Market tower, 
where the jail is. “It’s de fellers in de block,” he 
added. 

“Oh, yes,” commented Van Tassel, with a queer 
expression in his eyes, though he maintained a 
properly respectful demeanor. “And where do 
you play?” 

“Right here—in de block I” Pick looked sus¬ 
picious again. 

“No, I mean what position do you play?” ex¬ 
claimed Van Tassel hastily. 

“Oh, catcher.” 

“That’s a hard position.” 

“Yeah,” replied the catcher, indifferently, as 
he turned away. But Van Tassel stayed. He was 
looking at the crippled man at the other side of 
the stand. As their eyes met they exchanged a 
little smile behind the athlete’s back. 

“Er—what’s your name? Do you mind telling 
me?” Van Tassel pursued, addressing himself to 
the boy again, with some trepidation. 

“Pick. What’s yours?” 

“Jimmy!” replied Van Tassel, laughing. 

“A’right, Jimmy,” returned Pick, as he began 
sorting the papers again. 


225 



Van Tassel and Big Bill 

“All right, Pick I” And Van Tassel walked 
hastily away, lest in some way he offend against 
the dignity of the catcher of the Jeffersons. 

At the district club that evening Van Tassel 
asked Big Bill Baker, his best friend, about the 
news-stand in Eleventh Street. 

“Oh, the one-legged feller,” responded Big 
Bill. “Yeah, I know him. Tomkins—lives in 
Bank Street. Lost his leg when the scaffoldin’ 
gave way on that new loft buildin’ in Fourteenth 
Street. Then his wife died. Never been the same 
since. We got ’im the news-stand. That’s his kid 
works with ’im.” 

“Oh.” Jimmy paused. 

“Did yer lamp the baseball cap on the kid?” 
laughed Big Bill. 

“Yes—a little big for him, isn’t it?” Jimmy 
smiled at the recollection. 

“Couldn’t get none ter fit ’im any closer,” was 
the unexpected reply. “Head’s about as big as a 

button-” Bill’s protest suddenly lapsed into 

silence as Jimmy looked curiously at him. The big 
man’s gray eyes gave back look for look, but he 
was plainly flustered as he ran a big hand through 
his grizzled hair. “Well, I suppose yer got me 
again,” he said, as Jimmy began to smile. “Yer 
know, it’s different when y’ain’t got none o’ yer 


226 



The Imperturbability of Pick 

own.” A district captain came over to join them, 
and Bill moved off. 

“He’s a queer feller, mom,” Big Bill said to 
his wife that night. “Likes dogs and kids—an’ 
the funny thing is, they all like him! Now, he’s 
askin’ ’bout Tomkins’ kid at the news-stand— 
yeah, he’s a queer alderman, livin’ in that big 
house in Park Av’nyer, with all the money them 
Van Tassels got-” 

“He’s a good boy,” said “mom,” and that 
settled it. 

The next day Jimmy went out of his way to 
buy the Dispatch and the Clarion from Pick at 
the stand in Eleventh Street. At the corner he 
waited and looked. The battery of the Jeffersons 
was warming up in the roadway. The pitcher 
was a mite bigger than Pick, but not a whit more 
serious. The blue peak of Pick’s cap was down 
over his left eye as he scoped in the out-drops and 
up-shoots. He stood squatting with feet far 
apart, and occasionally he would stop a wide one 
on the left with a single gloved hand. Or the 
gloved hand would reach all the way across Pick’s 
small body, to the right and beyond, just in time 
for the ball to meet it and rest there. Then Pick 
would look bored. He returned the ball to the 
pitcher with dignity, but straight and true, and 
with a flick of the wrist that promised trouble at 


227 



Van Tassel and Big Bill 

second should any misguided runner try to steal 
a base on the catcher of the Jeffersons. 

Jimmy watched the warming up delightedly, 
and then made his purchase from “pop.” As he 
passed the battery in his departure, he ventured a 
greeting from the curb. “Hello, Pick!” he called. 

The catcher looked up, with ball poised in his 
right hand, ready to throw. “Hello, Jimmy!” 
he called back, then turned and flicked the ball 
back to the pitcher, hard. The interruption was 
over. It was hard enough going for the battery 
of the Jeffersons, with those trucks and taxis 
crashing by as they did, every few minutes, with¬ 
out having business acquaintances butting into a 
man’s athletics. 

But Jimmy came to be more than an acquain¬ 
tance ; he went out of his way more than once. On 
one occasion he even helped “pop” with the papers 
for a busy ten minutes that the Jeffersons might 
not want for a practiced battery. He never saw 
the Jeffersons play, although Pick said they had 
cleaned up some strong teams over on the “farm” 
—that bleak expanse of wagon-strewn asphalt 
that borders the docks on the North River. 
Jimmy could never be quite sure that there was a 
real, whole, nine-player team called the Jeffer¬ 
sons; Pick was always a little vague when games 


228 


The Imperturbability of Pick 

were mentioned. But the alderman forbore too 
close inquiry. 

Furthermore, he was very busily engaged this 
spring and summer, not only as alderman of the 
district, but also as the helplessly devoted fiance 
of Miss Sally Skeffington, of Washington Square. 
Horse and foot, he had waged his campaign for 
the hand of that charming young person until he 
had conquered—or so he thought, on that evening 
such a little while ago! But it was surrender he 
had ridden into—whole-hearted, blind, enchant¬ 
ing surrender—and the nearer he came to that 
October day the less he understood himself. 
“Lost—wholly lost,” his bachelor friends said 
mournfully, “never see him again!” It was not 
unnatural that from time to time he secured 
copies of the Dispatch and the Clarion in com¬ 
pany with the trim little figure with the dark hair 
and eyes, whose chin tilted up so saucily at the 
aldermanic grandeur that stalked beside her. 
Sally had been prepared for the catcher of the 
Jeffersons. 

“Hello, Pick!” hailed Jimmy, as they ap¬ 
proached the stand. “This is my friend, Miss 
Skeffington.” 

Pick looked up and blinked. 

“Sally—that’s easier!” added Miss Skeffing¬ 
ton, quickly. 

“Oh—Sally.” Pick looked from one to the 


229 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

other. A mounting little blush began to set off 
the laughing black eyes. Even Jimmy began to 
feel confused. “She your gal?” asked Pick, rest¬ 
ing a careful eye on the alderman. 

“I hope so, Pick,” replied Jimmy, beginning to 
blush himself. 

“A’right, Sally.” Pick announced his approval 
with businesslike decision as he turned to fish up 
the Dispatch and the Clarion. 

From that moment Sally enjoyed the favor of 
the catcher of the Jeffersons. Once she went to 
the little room in Bank Street, and when Pick and 
the “old man” arrived there in the evening they 
found flowers and a large chocolate cake. But 
the attention that sent Sally up to the top notch 
of Pick’s approval was the purchase of a brand 
new catcher’s mit for the backstop of the Jeffer¬ 
sons. Curiously enough, it was Sally, and not 
Jimmy, who first noticed the vanishing flimsiness 
of the old bit of leather that Pick called a glove. 
Perhaps the household eye sees farther than the 
athlete’s. In any event, it was Sally who put 
through the glove project, and accomplished the 
presentation ceremony. Pick nearly lost his bal¬ 
ance when the big blob of brown leather was 
placed in his arms—not quite, but nearly. 

“Gee, Sally!” That was all he could say. But 
when he went to work behind the mythical batter, 


230 


The Imperturbability of Pick 

and the hosts of the block’s little people, boys and 
girls alike, looked their silent admiration from the 
curb, Pick had easily recovered his poise. The 
glove looked bigger than the whole of the little 
white shirt that no necktie had ever defiled, but 
Pick handled it like a veteran, casually. He 
seemed even a trifle bored. 

“If I could once get a rise from that young 
man!” Jimmy mused, when Sally told him the tale 
of the glove. “He’s the most imperturbable per¬ 
son I’ve ever encountered!” 

The opportunity came sooner than he expected. 
It was the latter part of September, and in two 
short weeks—but that was a matter of purely 
local interest! The crisis that had upset the whole 
town was to be resolved, not in a church, but at 
the Polo Grounds, on that very afternoon. It is 
not to be expected that great-aunts of office boys 
should survive, in large numbers, a duel of the 
leading teams for a big league baseball cham¬ 
pionship, but this time the mortality had become 
a massacre. The Giants were down to cross bats 
with the Cubs in their neck-and-neck race for the 
pennant! And Wall Street held its breath. So 
did Broadway, and the Bowery—and Eleventh 
Street. So did Pick. He knew the batting and 
fielding average of every player on both teams, 
he knew the bush leagues of their origin; and the 


231 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

intricacies of infield flies were an old, sad story to 
the catcher of the Jeffersons. 

But the Honorable James Van Tassel knew 
something better than all that. He knew that the 
two pasteboard affairs in his inside pocket called 
for two good seats back of home plate, and he 
was not concerned with the very considerable out¬ 
lay that their purchase had involved. Strangely 
enough, he had no idea of looking upon the battle 
between the Giants and the Cubs with his own 
eyes—he had a much more important engagement 
on hand for that afternoon! But he had con¬ 
ceived the plan of sending Pick to the ball game, 
with Big Bill as a sheltering escort, and both of 
those gentlemen had joined in the plan with the 
greatest enthusiasm. As they left the news-stand 
together Jimmy had called after them: “Keep 
your eyes open, Pick, so you can tell me about it!” 

“A’right, Jimmy,” Pick had replied. “I know 
how dem guys pull, up dere!” He was self-pos¬ 
session itself. If he had known the cost of the 
tickets it would have made no difference. 

“To-morrow I’ll see what he says,” thought 
Jimmy as he walked away. “The Giants and the 
Cubs—that ought to get him!” 

At the Polo Grounds there were forty thousand 
fans. Outside the gates there were twenty thou¬ 
sand more. At tickers and bulletin-boards, from 


232 


The Imperturbability of Pick 

Maine to California, there were thousands and 
hundreds of thousands, collected in the name of 
the great god Baseball. Business in Wall Street 
was at a low ebb. The nation waited. 

Back of the plate were Big Bill and Pick, chew¬ 
ing gum furiously. A bag of peanuts rested in 
Pick’s lap. And then the game began. “Str-r-ike 
one!” bawled the umpire, with arm jerked back, 
as the Giant’s pitcher put over a high in. “H’ray 
—h’ray-y-y!” The roar of the fans rolled up 
from the stand to Coogan’s Bluff and beyond. 
Over mountain and plain, from State to State, to 
the Golden Gate, it reverberated, until it fell 
moaning into the deep Pacific as the nation waited 
for the next ball. Pick was silent. He shifted 
his gum as he studied the pitcher’s delivery. He 
was the catcher of the Jeffersons. 

“Str-r-ike tuh!” The fans leaped in air as they 
gave tongue. And so from ball to ball, from bat 
to glove and back again, the game went on, 
through all the long nine innings. It serves not 
here to sing the story of the contest. Long years 
ago it passed to history’s embrace, with unsung 
tilts of ancient chivalry, and all the hosts of the 
games of men in field, arena, stream and ring. 

But there are those who still tell of that ninth 
inning, when two were out and the game was tied, 
one to one—in the last half of the ninth! Corn- 


233 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

muters had gone their homeward way, cursing the 
inflexibility of the five-fifteen. The fans sat tight 
—none more so than Pick and the big man beside 
him. 

If there had been nobody on base the agony 
would have been less rending. But there were 
Giants on base! Big Merkle was galumphing up 
and down off first, arms wide apart to balance a 
tiptoe start toward second or a slide back to first, 
as the event might decree. To make it worse, 
McCormick, across the diamond, was venturing 
his lumbering form a few feet off third, as he 
watched the ball and swayed anxiously toward 
home, then prudently back toward the bag, lifting 
first one foot, then the other. Oh, for the hit, 
the one little crackling hit that would send him 
to the plate! Two on, two out, and the last half 
of the ninth, with the score tied—is fate kind? 
Must hearts thump, and break, as fans wait and 
suffer, from bleachers to ticker, from ocean to 
ocean? Or will there be relief? 

Yes! Bridwell, the trim little shortstop of the 
Giants, has dropped one of the two bats he has 
been swinging, and is stepping up to bat. Uncon¬ 
cerned, methodical, ever neat, the little last hope 
is knocking the bat carefully against his cleated 
shoes. Now he is at the plate. And Bridwell is a 
pinch hitter besides, as many a big league flinger 


234 


The Imperturbability of Pick 

knows to his cost. And the fans—yes, they know 
it too ! And they are saying so! The stands are 
a ferment, the bleachers a riot. “Home run— 
Bridwell—attaboy, Bridwell—oh, you Bridwell!” 
The whole great arena is a confused roar, with 
shrill cries from cracking nerves punctuating the 
turmoil here and there. Beyond the bleachers 
the elevated trains stand mute, massed for the 
coming exodus. The tall stack of a river boat 
moves placidly down the Harlem, evenly, quietly, 
just the top of it visible over the massed trains. 
Above, the sky is a bright blue. And, within the 
encircling stands, the smooth turf shines like a 
great emerald, with only the brown base-lines, 
and here and there the gray dots of the players, 
tense and still, to give sign of the crisis at hand. 

Well—they called two strikes and three balls 
on Bridwell, and now the stands are a pande- 
monimum of hoarse cries and stamping feet. The 
Cubs’ pitcher is fondling the ball carefully, seri¬ 
ously, as he ponders. He winds up, comes through 
a convulsion, and the white pellet leaves his hand 
in a straight line. The Moment has come. And 
Bridwell, the neat little pinch-hitting short-stop, 
is ready. He bends over, puts his back into a 
sharp swing, and—crack! The ball sails low and 
clear, over second, like a bullet, and still it is 
rising, rising! Now it seems to pause, then falls 


235 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

gradually, in a wide arc, and Artie Hofman, in 
centre field, is closing in to catch it on the bound. 
But it’s a single—yes, a smashing base hit, as 
clean as a whistle! And Bridwell is nearing first. 
Now he is there, just as the ball reaches Hofman, 
out in centre. He touches the bag, lightly, as he 
goes straight on, headed for the club-house back 
of right field—Bridwell, who never wastes a step 
—Bridwell, the immaculate, who has won the 
game! For McCormick is home, in a rush, wav¬ 
ing his arms as he crosses the plate— the game 
is over! “Giants win”—can you hear the wux- 
tries? Ah-h! There are hearts that have been 
damaged by the strain of that base hit, there are 
hands that tremble. The fans are already over 
the barriers, on the field, and racing after the 
players toward the club-house. 

But wait! Johnny Evers of the Cubs is stand¬ 
ing on the bag at second, holding the ball that 
Hofman has thrown in to him, with the base-line 
umpire beside him, and a throng of fans fast join¬ 
ing the knot of players who surround him. Argu¬ 
ment succeeds talk, and excitement follows argu¬ 
ment. There is trouble, sure enough—over some¬ 
thing! But the game is over. The fans have 
filled the field. There will be no more baseball 
this day. 

“What’s the trouble?” Big Bill found himself 


236 


The Imperturbability of Pick 

asking, of no one in particular, as the moments 
passed. Then he looked down beside him—oh, 
yes, there was Pick, who had been there all the 
time. The catcher of the Jeffersons was looking 
disgustedly out to sea, his hands in his pockets. 

“Ah, Merkle didn’t touch second,” he replied 
scornfully—“de big bonehead! He’s forced out 
and McCormick’s run don’t count.” 

Big Bill’s face was a study in astonishment— 
he was almost frightened. “How d’yer know?” 
he gasped. 

“Ah, didn’t I see it?” The catcher of the Jef¬ 
fersons looked up at Big Bill with quiet indigna¬ 
tion—as though he didn’t know enough to watch 
Merkle while he swerved, twenty feet short of 
second, and with a look over his shoulder, sprinted 
toward the club-house, in the belief that the game 
was already over, and with never a thought of 
touching second. 

“Come on home, Bill,” said Pick. “Tie game 
—nobody wins.” And they went home together. 

When Jimmy read the morning papers next 
day and then heard the clamorous talk of the town 
as the day wore on, he realized that the biggest 
thing in baseball had just happened, at the Polo 
Grounds. His eyes danced as he thought of Pick. 
“The little rascal,” he mused, “I’ve got him this 


237 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

time!” He paid an early afternoon visit to 
Eleventh Street. 

“Well, how did you like it, Pick?” he inquired 
eagerly. 

“Punk,” said the catcher of the Jeffersons, with 
decision. Jimmy stared, aghast. 

“But—I mean—the ball game,” he stammered. 

“Yeah—bum game—’at Merkle’s a bonehead 
—solid ivory.” 

Jimmy recovered slowly. “Did you have a 
good time?” he inquired faintly, after a pause. 

“Yeah—’tanks, Jimmy—all except dat Merkle. 
He couldn’t get a job on de Jeffersons, you bet!” 

Jimmy crooned something to himself about 
“imperturbability,” as he walked hazily away. 
But that was too long a word for Pick, even if 
he had heard it. 

When Jimmy received Big Bill’s report on 
Pick’s trip to the Polo Grounds, he had to admit, 
finally, that Pick had not been “stumped” at any 
stage of the proceedings. That evening he re¬ 
counted the adventure to Sally, almost plaintively. 

“But that shows how much he really enjoyed 
it,” she had said, as she comforted him. “And, 
you know, when he came back from that fresh-air 
trip we sent him on in July, he was just the same 
—although it put a little color in his cheeks.” 


238 


The Imperturbability of Pick 

“Yes,” said Jimmy, and then they took up 
other matters, of great importance to themselves. 

It was natural enough that Jimmy should ask 
Big Bill to take Pick to the wedding. “He’d like 
it—the music and all that,” he had said, “and the 
church will be filled, I guess. It will be a new 
one for him.” He paused. “And, you know, he’s 
one of my friends,” he added—“the little rascal 1” 

Bill laughed. He knew how well Jimmy liked 
kids, as well as dogs. He was subject to the same 
eccentricity. “All right, I’ll look out for him,” 
he said. 

Jimmy wished that he could look forward to 
the ceremony with the calmness that he knew 
would possess Pick on that occasion. 

Then the day came—at last—and he was ready. 
As the towers of St. George’s cast their lengthen¬ 
ing shadows across the sunlit trees in the old 
square, the people came, in myriads of twos and 
trees that filled the church to the doors, long 
before four o’clock. It was one of those crisp 
October days in New York that sets the whole 
world a-tingle, and the whole world was a-tingle, 
in Stuyvesant Square, that afternoon! Rich and 
poor, from east side and west side, they were all 
there; and not one but wished an armful of happi¬ 
ness to the two who would soon be “joined 
together” that day, in St. George’s. In a pew 


239 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

near the door sat Big Bill, with Pick beside him 
on the aisle, in a clean white shirt, still free of 
necktie annoyance. They waited quietly, while 
the organ played and the church filled. 

Suddenly the deep-toned bells sounded from 
above. It was four o’clock. There was a little 
rustle and ripple at the door, and then the organ 
swung into the beginnings of the march, ever so 
gently, gathering volume, then dying away to a 
whispering melody, and now returning again, in 
round, full tones. In the chancel the rector was 
standing, his keen, brown eyes under the shock 
of black hair seeming to include the whole assem¬ 
blage in their comprehensive kindliness. And 
Jimmy, with another man, was standing and wait¬ 
ing, near by. Pick had seen them at once. “Dere’s 
Jimmy,” he exclaimed quickly, half rising. “Sh!” 
said Big Bill gently, as he put a hand on the little 
fellow. A few heads, near by, turned around and 
smiled. Even Jimmy smiled. But he could not 
have heard. He was glimpsing the great church¬ 
ful, with a quick glance. Beyond the pews of the 
families and their intimates, were friends by the 
score, and, among them, the throngs who knew 
Jimmy as an alderman, or, rather, just as Jimmy. 
There were cops and a few firemen, all in uni¬ 
form; the sidewalk folk—here and there the little 
stand-keepers, men and women, from the street 


240 


The Imperturbability of Pick 

corners; a delegation of aldermen, looking very 
uncomfortable in their black habiliments; and, 
above all, the “district,” old and young, from 
every block in the neighborhood. Jimmy felt an 
overpowering emotion taking hold of him as his 
eye took in this outpouring of a simple friendship, 
within the shadows of the old church. Then the 
march began, and every one rose. 

When the ceremony was over, and the rector’s 
last resonant words had rung gently into every 
corner of the church, Pick noticed with surprise 
that there were tears in some of the eyes about 
him, and that even Big Bill seemed strangely 
silent. He could not understand this. He had 
been very still while the music was sounding, 
though he could not tell why; and then, while 
they were murmuring up there in the chancel, so 
far away, he had been busy looking up into the 
shadows under the eaves, craning his little neck as 
he yielded to the fascination of those nooks of 
mystery. But now the music was in full, festive 
swing, and there was Jimmy, smiling as he came 
down the aisle, with that beautiful, snowy person 
beside him that must be Sally, and—why, it was 
a parade! And yet there was a little old lady in 
front with her eyes so wet—Pick couldn’t under¬ 
stand it at all. 

Then Jimmy and the beautiful snowy thing 


241 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

were suddenly right alongside, and Jimmy was 
looking down, and saying, “Hello, Pick,” with the 
merriest sort of a twinkle in his eye. 

“H’lo, Jimmy,” said Pick; and Jimmy put out 
a hand to pat the little shoulder. Before Big 
Bill could stop him, Pick slipped out of the pew, 
and, as he had often done before, put his arm up 
through Jimmy’s, and proceeded to accompany 
him down the rest of the aisle. On the other side, 
Sally was looking over and laughing a little, and 
Jimmy was marching straight ahead, utterly at a 
loss what to do. Pick escorted them to the side¬ 
walk, as imperturbably as ever, despite the smiles 
and chuckles of amusement that followed the trio 
through the door. 

At the curb stood the horses and carriage that 
the Skeffingtons had always kept, despite the 
advent of automobiles; and near by a mounted 
cop sat his glistening bay, in all the splendor of 
policeman’s blue and cavalry yellow. The cop 
was grinning broadly at Pick, down there on the 
curb, in his white shirt and patched corduroys. 
Jimmy stood uncertainly, his arm still linked in 
that of his little friend, wondering how to leave 
him and still save his feelings. 

It was Sally who, with all her bride’s difficulties 
of long train, stepped quickly into the awkward 
moment. 


242 



“Gee, is dis you, Sally?” 








The Imperturbability of Pick 

“Come here, Pick,” she said, smiling and 
beckoning. Pick advanced cautiously, and looked 
up. 

“Gee, is dis you, Sally?” he asked incredulously 
as she bent over him. 

“Yes, Pick—it’s Sally. Now stand still—I 
want to give you a flower before we go.” She 
was smiling, as she took a sprig of lilies-of-the- 
valley from the great bouquet and fixed it in a 
buttonhole of the little fellow’s white shirt. Pick 
suffered this to be done, with quiet patience, for 
he trusted Sally. But, as he stood, he kept looking 
at the snowy veil, and the creamy dress, and the 
orange blossoms in Sally’s dark hair. Most of all 
his wondering look dwelt on Sally’s laughing eyes 
and the little flush of excitement that covered her 
pretty cheeks. Pick had never seen anything so 
beautiful—this could not be Sally, who had given 
him the big catcher’s glove 1 

And then something quite unexpected happened 
to Pick. Sally gave a final twitch to the flower, 
and suddenly, with a quick little caress, she leaned 
forward a few inches farther and kissed Pick 
lightly on the cheek. “Good-by, little friend, 
we’ll come to see you soon,” she said. 

As the carriage drove away, with the beautiful 
dream in it that must be Sally, Pick just stood and 
looked. Once he half raised his arms, as though 


243 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

pleading to be taken along. But then the car¬ 
riage whirled around the corner; and he was left 
standing there alone, still looking, as though he 
saw something far away, and asked for it. Yes, 
Pick was “stumped”—at last—but, after all, was 
it Pick’s fault? Or was it just that accident of 
life that had left the old cripple to be father and 
mother both, the best he could, in the top-floor 
room in Bank Street? 

When Pick finally looked up and saw Big Bill 
on the church steps, he thought it queer that Bill’s 
lips should be trembling in such a curious way, 
although his face seemed so quiet. But when the 
big man came over and took Pick by the hand, 
the catcher of the Jeffersons put up with that 
additional indignity, as they trudged quietly off 
toward Eleventh Street. 




244 


“CASSIDY—IS THAT THE 

NAME?” 


W HEN the war broke out, Alderman Van 
Tassel resigned his job and went to Platts- 
burg as a matter of course. The last man he saw 
at the district club, in the old brownstone house in 
Twenty-third Street, was Big Bill Baker, whose 
gray hair showed at once that he was out of it, 
though the gaunt frame and set jaw still bespoke 
certain abilities of combat. 

“Well, Jimmy, I’ll be goin’ along—yer’ll wanta 
be home early to-night,” said Big Bill, as they 
stood on the steps in parting. 

“All right, Bill,” replied the Honorable James 
Van Tassel, who, for nearly four years now, had 
been Father Knickerbocker’s representative from 
the 75th aldermanic district. Tall, slender, and 
rejoicing in the athletic bloom of the late twenties, 
Jimmy Van Tassel looked like good material for 
Uncle Sam’s commissioned personnel. And then 
there was an engaging straightforwardness to 
his clean-cut features that inspired confidence and 
affection. 

“Now, remember what I always told yer,” coun- 


245 



Van Tassel and Big Bill 

seled Big Bill, who wanted to say something else, 
but couldn’t. “Try an’ fix them new faces first 
time yer see ’em—an’ pin the name on the face 
while yer shakin’ hands, ’fore it slips yer. After 
that, it’s too late.” 

“I’ll try, Bill,” said Jimmy obediently, with a 
twinkle of amusement in his eye. 

“Take ’em up together,” continued Big Bill 
earnestly, “name an’ face, an’ tuck ’em away solid, 
same as T. R. does. Why, he could shake hands 
with an engineer, an’ four years later, when he’d 
see ’im again, he’d say, ‘Hello, John McQuillan, 
remember when yer took me to Buffalo on the 
Empire that rainy day in June?’ An’ he had 
McQuillan’s vote for life!” 

Jimmy laughed. How often his wise old friend, 
steeped in thirty years of district politics, had 
read him this same lecture ! And how lamentably 
he had failed to profit by it! He thought of the 
scores whose names and faces had parted from 
each other, irrevocably, from the moment he had 
met them. Tie them together? They flew to 
opposite poles the minute Jimmy took their 
bearers by the hand. And then the day of reckon¬ 
ing would come, when he would stand helplessly 
before the face he had met a year ago, and splut¬ 
ter hurriedly, “Fine to see you again!” or “Yes, I 
remember you very well!” And he would look 


246 


“Cassidy—Is That the Name?” 

his panic, and sometimes even blush, as the eye of 
Nemesis changed from cordiality to suspicion, and 
then to stern conviction of the unpardonable 
political sin—to forget a constituent’s name! But 
the name would be lost, dismally and miserably, 
in Sahara’s sands, in the ocean’s deeps, in the dim 
shadows of eternity—so far as Jimmy’s struggling 
memory was concerned. The Honorable James 
Van Tassel was a better alderman than he was a 
politician. 

“I’ll do my best, Bill,” he promised, smiling 
ruefully. And then they shook hands, and parted, 
quickly. 

From Plattsburg, Jimmy went to Upton, a lieu¬ 
tenant. He thought of Big Bill’s admonition 
occasionally, as he thought of every last little 
thing that had to do with home, whenever his 
mind could wander from the feverish concentra¬ 
tion that went with the building of a new army. 
But in the army it was harder than ever to tie 
names to faces. Here there was less and less of 
individuality, as the days went by. Men fell into 
a common mould of u O D” uniform, soldierly 
bearing, soldierly ways. Later there would be 
individualism, wonderful and shining to the end 
—but now it was discipline and uniformity, to 
nurse and foster the vital instinct of instant, un¬ 
conscious obedience. The mould was the thing! 


247 



Van Tassel and Big Bill 

Then, in the dead of winter, Jimmy’s luck came, 
on wings. He was ordered overseas with an ad¬ 
vance detachment—he was going! While others 
waited and wondered if ever an American soldier 
would get to France, he was—on his way! 

The parting from the little home was a moment 
that he would never forget. Suddenly it was 
over, and he had gone. It was a curious chance 
that, as the taxi whirled him, now unseeing and 
unstrung, toward the pier, a side glance from the 
window revealed Big Bill, standing on the curb 
as the taxi turned the corner. The big man 
started, and then his eyes just stared. 

“G’bye, Jimmy,” he called, “an’ good luck! 
Remember them faces now!” 

“Good-bye, Bill,” Jimmy smiled back in a 
whisper, that he thought was a shout. Bill’s face 
was a grin, but, as the taxi passed, Jimmy noticed 
that the grin seemed to disappear, as Big Bill 
suddenly turned away. 

And then the ship sailed—for France! 

When Lieutenant Van Tassel, with the other 
officers of the detachment, stepped from the train 
in Paris, on his way to the British front, the 
dawn was beginning to filter, in streaks of smoky 
gray, into the cavernous gloom of the great shed. 
The little engines, with their strings of little cars, 
were steaming and sighing in their tracks. The 


248 


“Cassidy—Is That the Name?” 

platforms were a swarm of civilians and railroad 
officials, French soldiers in blue and American 
doughboys in O D, and—nurses. For the great 
German drive was on, and over on a far track in 
the shed stood a hospital train, silent, dark and 
filled, the bright paint of the red crosses on the 
cars giving bloody token of the burden within. 
On a nearer track lay a long troop train, with 
“hommes 40, chevaux 8” painted in white letters 
against the sides of the little box cars that looked 
just big enough for ten men, or two horses! 

As Jimmy deposited on the platform his little 
mountain of transatlantic luggage, that would 
soon be reduced to a mere musette bag, slung over 
the shoulder—and plenty enough, at that!—he 
looked amazedly at the rickety little cars whose 
orders were to carry all of forty men or eight 
horses. It was his first glimpse of the famous 
“hommy and sh’voe” that will be recounted at 
American firesides for years to come! 

But not yet was he to measure the sardine pos¬ 
sibilities of “hommy and sh’voe.” For the little 
box cars had rolled in, in the night, on an errand 
that was quite out of the ordinary. Instead of 
their squirming boxfuls of soldiers, they were 
emptying slowly on to the platform a dribble of 
old men, and women and little children, that 
caught and held Jimmy’s look as though he could 


249 



Van Tassel and Big Bill 

see nothing else. Worn and weary gaunt, 
hungry and dirty—the motley train-load clam¬ 
bered down to the platform, helping each other 
here, stumbling there, and then standing, silent, 
before the cars, with their small belongings piled 
about them. 

“Refugees—from Amiens,” a passing dough¬ 
boy said to his mate, “been on the road three 
nights, on those cars. Go a few miles, then get 
put on a siding, to let troops and ammunition by. 
Out o’ luck.” 

“They look it,” was the reply. 

A porter came bustling up and loaded the lieu¬ 
tenant’s baggage on a hand truck, and started to 
roll it away. 

“Wait a minute!” said Jimmy. 

The porter looked blank, and started to move 
again. 

“No parlee Fron-say—wait!” Jimmy repeated, 
with a desperate gesture. The porter halted, 
with a sigh. These crazy Americans—he was 
only trying to help! Then he saw the cause of 
the delay, and he looked more puzzled than ever. 
From the nearest of the box cars, a very white¬ 
faced woman, with a little girl on one side and a 
bent old man on the other, was approaching, with 
a bag in each hand and a bundle under each arm, 
above the bags. The little girl carried a tightly- 


250 


“Cassidy—Is That the Name?” 

wound mess of clothing, as big as herself; and 
the old man, with cane in one hand, was trying to 
pick up a bundle with the other. He tottered as 
he bent down, and it seemed as though he would 
fall. The woman sidled over to support him. 
They were all dressed in black, even to the little 
black-eyed girl. 

“Ah!” Jimmy gasped. With a bound he went 
to the rescue of the family, and, to the amaze¬ 
ment of the porter, began to take the bags and 
bundles, and pile them on top of his own lug¬ 
gage, on the truck. 

“Ah, merci, merci!” murmured the woman. 

“All right!” returned Jimmy cheerily, as he 
struggled with the heaviest bag of all. Then he 
dropped the bag, and stared. Before him stood 
an American doughboy, with corporal’s chevrons, 
saluting. 

“Can I help you with the bundles, sir?” 

Jimmy saw a round, red face above the stocky 
form in O D, slowly relaxing into a smile. As 
the smile grew broader, the blue eyes began to 
twinkle, and more and more it seemed as though 
some jolly old jack-o-lantern had strayed from 
its American hallow-e’en, all the way over into 
the big, gray station in Paris. Somewhere—oh, 
somewhere, he had seen that face! None could 
mistake that look of simple delight, as though the 


251 



Van Tassel and Big Bill 

face had to laugh at itself. Once seen, that full 
moon of mirth was a thing to be remembered. 
But Jimmy couldn’t remember the name. He 
returned the salute vaguely, thinking hard. Had 
he surely seen the face before? He thought so. 
If Big Bill were only here to jog him! 

“Thank you, corporal,” he said uncertainly. 
Together they piled up the bundles, and together 
they escorted the little refugee family to the Red 
Cross room, where an American Red Cross girl 
came up and brought hot coffee, and bread and 
jam to those French of Amiens, who had eaten 
so little since they had left their homes in flames, 
three nights ago. As the refugees sank wearily 
on a bench in the corner, with more “ merci’s 
the jack-o-lantern corporal saluted again, with 
those same vague ripples of delight spreading 
over his round face. Then, as Jimmy returned the 
salute, the corporal took a long chance. 

“Good luck, Alderman!” he said, with the 
merriest twinkle of all. There is nothing in the 
regulations that permits a corporal to address a 
lieutenant as “Alderman.” 

Jimmy could stand it no longer. Human endu¬ 
rance has its limits. “What’s your name?” he 
burst out. 

“Cassidy, sir—Johnny Cassidy.” 

“Cassidy—is that the name? Oh-h, ye’es,” 


252 


“Cassidy—Is That the Name?” 

Jimmy remembered. That fine little worker in 
the ninth election district, who kept the polling 
place laughing all day long, on election day, every 
year—now he placed him I “Oh, Johnny!” he 
exclaimed. Then he began to laugh himself, as 
with a rush of feeling, he yielded to a warming 
sensation of utter happiness at meeting a Man 
From Home—the first one! He wanted to hug 
the jack-o-lantern corporal—Johnny Cassidy, of 
the ninth! He couldn’t do that; other officers 
were coming up, and there were those regulations. 
But for the next ten minutes an American lieu¬ 
tenant and corporal, in France, talked of nothing 
but Macdougal Street and the boys of the ninth, 
in New York. When they parted—suddenly, as 
a colonel approached—they saluted very stiffly, 
as they glared at each other in just the way colo¬ 
nels desire. The regulations were still safe. 

At the front, through the long summer and 
autumn, Jimmy saw, heard and felt a little of what 
may be seen and heard and felt, at the front. He 
found it hard to talk about, although it stayed 
with him so much more vividly than ever had 
names and faces, back in the district. But some¬ 
how it was different—the memory of those things 
at the front, in France. And when the armistice 
came, and the job was done, it was Captain Van 
Tassel who had the bad luck to fall sick, and spend 


253 



Van Tassel and Big Bill 

three months in an army hospital. When they 
finally turned him loose, in “Class B,” unfit for 
further service, he was shunted through that 
sluiceway of the sick and wounded—St. Aignan 
to Brest to Hoboken and out of the way—swiftly, 
for he was waste. And eventually he slipped out 
of O D and puttees, into those flapping civilian 
things called trousers, that made him feel like an 
exaggerated Chinaman for months to come. The 
war was over. 

It was the day after his discharge that Jimmy 
had to get through with a multitude of vexatious 
errands down-town that left him wearier than he 
thought man could ever be. He still displayed 
the fullness that follows the feeding up of con¬ 
valescence, but it would be another year before 
the old stamina would return, with its helpful 
supply of muscle. He sank into a seat in the sub¬ 
way and wondered how long he could stay there— 
for he still persisted in that obsolete custom of 
giving up his seat to women. 

At Fourteenth Street the blow fell. There was 
a roar and a clash outside the car as the human 
stream clawed and elbowed its way in. Men and 
women alike, they were tearing, squeezing, push¬ 
ing. Jimmy, looking over his shoulder, decided 
that New York’s subway war was the worst war 


254 


“Cassidy—Is That the Name?” 

of all. As the first woman was hurled toward 
him, he rose and lifted his hat, with a silent ges¬ 
ture toward the seat. He thought that she seemed 
unusually tired. Her face was pale and drawn. 
She was dressed in black. A little girl followed, 
clutching her by the hand; and in the other hand 
she held a bundle. Jimmy stood absently, look¬ 
ing; for somewhere he had seen that picture 
before. It was long ago, but he had seen it—the 
same tired, harried little woman, the same bundle, 
the same little girl. But then there was another— 
ah, now he remembered—the refugees from 
Amiens, in the great, dark train shed in the early 
morning—how long ago it was! 

As he stood, wandering among memories, a 
thick-set man, whose belt encircled a considerable 
circumference of shirted waist line, slid under his 
elbow, and into the vacant seat. The little woman 
paused, disappointed. Jimmy turned quickly. “If 
you please, sir,” he protested, “I just gave that 
seat to this lady-” 

“Ah, hell,” replied the belted man, mopping 
his brow, contemptuously. “Think y’own the 
road?” 

“But-” 

The interloper, perching on the edge of the 
seat, wedged back a little, though with difficulty. 


255 





Van Tassel and Big Bill 

His neighbors seemed to have stiffened. Jimmy 
stiffened in a different way. He was getting his 
first taste of New York’s perpetual war, that is 
waged twice a day, on the Fourteenth Street front. 
For a second he wished for Big Bill—what a help 
the hand of that rough and ready Ajax would be! 
Jimmy thought he had never felt weaker, not 
since that day in the hospital when he had first 
tried to walk. And the whole thing was disgust¬ 
ing, and beastly. But he tightened his lips and 
bent to the task, swiftly. 

Then, just as he had wished for Big Bill, the 
providential came true. Even in subway wars it 
does—sometimes. A big hand reached out along¬ 
side of him, horizontally and low. With a clutch 
the hand grasped the wide belt, then pulled, with 
a jerk, and hard. The car hog followed the belt 
and hand, slipped from the edge of the seat, and 
fell forward on his face, as the hand let go and 
swung him to one side and down the aisle. He 
crashed against the knees of two incoming citizens, 
and then sprawled about their feet. 

Jimmy was fairly thrusting the tired little 
woman into the newly vacant seat, as the neigh¬ 
bors relaxed and made space for her. He saw 
now that she was not the French war refugee; she 
was just an American subway refugee. “There!” 


256 


“Cassidy—Is That the Name?” 

he said, as he stuck out elbows like wings, for 
further protection for the little girl. He had had 
his own troubles, stemming a rush from another 
quarter toward the coveted seat. 

“Oh, thank you,” said the woman wearily. 

Then Jimmy looked about. The car hog was 
picking himself up, cursing but cowed. The man 
who stood over him grunted scornfully, straight¬ 
ened up, and then turned around. Jimmy’s jaw 
fell as he looked at him. This was not Big Bill. 
Above the short body in greasy overalls, a round 
face began to grin, the blue eyes began to twinkle, 
vaguely and happily, and—oh, he knew that face 
—he knew it, he knew it! The grin widened and 
spread—oh, for the name! Jimmy scratched his 
memory, frantically, as he smiled back weakly. 
The stocky form suddenly stiffened up, and a hand 
went to the jack-o-lantern face, now all a-grin, in 
rigid salute. 

“Can I help you with the bundles, sir?” 

Then the alderman who was not so good a 
politician saw a great light. “Oh, Cassidy!” he 
exclaimed. “Johnny—Johnny Cassidy!” he 
fairly shouted, and, to the amazement of the 
straphangers, the two men fell on each other’s 
necks in a wild embrace of pure delight. 

“I know a little place—French,” said Sergeant 


257 



Van Tassel and Big Bill 

Cassidy, as they got off at Forty-second Street, 
arm in arm. 

“Private Pitiard?” asked Captain Van Tassel. 
“Ah, oui,” said the sergeant. “And General 
Fin Rouge!” 

But that was back in 1919. 


258 


“UFFS” 

A S Patrolman John Kane, Traffic A, went on 
. post in Fifth Avenue, somewhere south of 
Fourteenth Street, he drew on his gray gloves 
quickly and stamped his feet on the cold pavement. 
The early morning sun was squinting over the 
housetops, but there had been four days of cdd 
April rain, and the clouds swept in from the west 
in great low billows that kept back the sunshine 
except for a flashing glimpse here and there. The 
storm was still in the air, and the sharpness of 
March was in the wind that whirled around the 
corner. 

“Ugh! Not much spring in this!” shivered the 
traffic cop, as he waved a solitary truck on its 
lumbering cross-town way. He looked down, as 
though something in his uniform were missing, 
and shivered once more, as he realized the loss of 
the overcoat that departmental orders had just 
banished for the season. 

“Wrong again!” he commented, in recognition 
of the official wisdom that annually picks the 
coldest day in April for the shedding of over¬ 
coats. The seasoned cop instinctively crowds 


259 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

sweaters and newspapers to his bosom, behind his 
brass buttons, when the overcoat order appears; 
for he knows that a cold snap is coming. And, 
once the overcoat is off, he knows it will not be 
ordered on again, though blizzards blow and 
snow flakes fly. 

Officer Kane was not the only doubter of spring. 
Men. hurried around the corner with coat collars 
turned up, and a pair of stenographers stopped 
and turned around for breath as they came sud¬ 
denly into the teeth of the wind. Tommaso, who 
had cleaned this block for many years, came by 
with head lowered as he doggedly pushed his 
broom over the pavement before him. He wore 
a black rubber coat, rubber hat, and rubber boots. 
Only where the coat was unbuttoned at the neck 
did the white of his uniform show. 

“Hey, Tom, wha’ d’yer do with that hot spell?” 
hailed Kane. 

The cleaner stopped, looked up and meditated; 
then, with a shrug of his shoulders, went on. 

“Feelin’ good to-day, Tom?” Kane threw after 
him, with a grin. 

On the sidewalk a knot of taxi-drivers huddled 
behind the line of taxis, where there was shelter. 
The storm awning that ran out from the high 
building flapped and snapped in the wind. Kane 
looked over the taxis, then turned around in a 


260 


“Uffs” 

circle as he surveyed the street crossing horizon 
that would hold him in its grip until sunset. Noth¬ 
ing unusual, he registered, as he beckoned on the 
first office bound limousine from the north, with 
his best “good morning” grin. There was a 
shuffle among the taxi men, and he looked again, 
more sharply. 

“Hey, come back here!” a voice shouted. 

“Come here, you rat!” 

There was a scuffle, and one of the drivers sud¬ 
denly shot out from between the taxis, with hands 
outstretched, and cigarette flying off at an angle. 
Aheacf of him a small yellow dog bounded over to 
Officer Kane in joyful up-and-down leaps, took up 
a position the other side of him, and turned 
around with head lowered, while he breathed 
defiance at his pursuer, from behind the blue clad 
legs of the law. 

“Ur-r-r!” growled the fugitive ferociously. 

“Hey, come out o’ that!” Then the driver 
looked up at the officer and laughed. 

“Ur-r-r!” The yellow forefeet were wide 
apart, the brown eyes were glaring from between 
them, and behind the uplifted back a crooked 
yellow tail was wagging vigorously. 

Kane looked down at the warrior at bay and 
gave a comprehending grin. 


261 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

“A reg’lar yeller dog,” he said. “Where d’yer 
get him, Jake?” 

“Oh, off a truck, ’bout an hour ago. They 
threw him off at the corner—you know how they 
do, when they want to get rid of a stray. He’s 
been hangin’ around here ever since—haven’tcha, 
y’ rat!” 

The rat shifted sideward a foot, in recognition 
of the challenge. 

“Here, let’s have a look,” said Kane as he bent 
down. “Give us a paw, now.” He tousled the 
top of the yellow head with one hand, and lifted 
a paw with the other. The warrior stood up on 
his hind legs, with tail wagging harder than ever, 
and placed a free paw, with its pawful of pave¬ 
ment dirt, on the spotless blue trouser. 

“Hey-y, there—whaddaya think I am—a door¬ 
mat?” Then he turned to the driver. “W’y, he’s 
a puppy, Jake—look at those legs. He hasn’t 

even found ’em yet. He makes me think of-” 

The sentence was left unfinished. “Ah, you poor 

little devil-” he put his hand gently on a broad 

scar across the shoulder that had scarcely healed. 
The puppy began meditatively licking the hand. 
“And that tail—it’s crooked as Pearl Street!” 
The last three inches of the yellow tail veered 
sharply off at an angle of thirty degrees. Kane 
looked again at the dog’s head. “Yes, you’re 


262 




“Uffs” 


just a yeller dog—a mut. You’re lucky to be 
alive.” He put the puppy down, brushed off his 
trousers, and straightened up. “Looks just like 
-” he started to say, then changed his mind. 

“What do we do with him?” asked the driver. 

“Guess we gotta fix him up.” Kane thought a 
moment. “I got it. You fellers keep him on the 
sidewalk for a while, where he won’t get hurt. 
I got an old army buddy on one o’ those big trucks 
that makes the night run to Baltimore, and he 
oughta be cornin’ by soon on the way to the shop. 
When he starts out to-night he can take him along 
and drop him at some farmhouse where they’ll 
take him in.” He pondered a minute. “Wish I 
could take him myself,” he added. “But I dunno 
where to put him. And he oughta get out o’ here 
quick—the society ’ll have him before noon, if a 
truck don’t get him first. A dog hasn’t a chance 
in this town.” 

The yellow pup had a different plan for his 
immediate future, however. He had definitely 
left that sidewalk, and was already on post; in 
joint possession of the crossing with the officer. 
He had found the friend he had been looking for 
since early morning, when they threw him off the 
truck; and all he asked of the world was one 
friend, to whom he could return his dog’s allegi¬ 
ance, in full measure. Kane’s efforts to transfer 


263 



Van Tassel and Big Bill 

the pup’s post were doomed to failure. He would 
shoo him away, with a great show of severity, 
and the puppy would go bounding off a few feet, 
in high glee, with head bobbing up and down in 
the most ridiculous fashion, hindquarters hunched 
up, and tail between his legs in mock subjection, 
only to execute an excited detour and come bound¬ 
ing back to the crossing. It was a great game, and 
just because the small dog entirely understood the 
big cop, it could not be anything else. 

They were an unexpected pair, as the early 
limousines saw them. Kane was six feet of brawn, 
with light hair and the pink cheeks he had brought 
home from France. He pulled twice his weight 
on the tug o’ war team of Traffic A. And his 
cheery grin was known to every car that passed 
his post. The yellow pup came to his knees, as 
he squatted on the pavement alongside the cop, 
shifting here and there as Kane waved on first 
the cross-town traffic and then turned to release 
the north and south bound. The faces that peered 
out of the limousines looked startled as they dis¬ 
covered the cause of their sudden slowing down, 
then, as they looked back and caught the cop’s 
grin above and the serious demeanor of his yellow 
assistant below, an irresistible burst of laughter 
would possess them for blocks to come. It might 
not be spring, but the day was starting right. 


264 


“Uffs” 


“Look here, old mastiff,” said Kane, as the 
traffic grew thicker, “you’ll have to handle the 
sidewalk sector now, or there won’t be any yellow 
pup pretty soon.” The puppy’s eyes looked as 
though they were trying to understand, while his 
tail wagged acquiescence in whatever his new mas¬ 
ter might decree. Kane looked at him thought¬ 
fully. “It’s funny,” he said, “you’re a ringer for 
him—poor little Uffs. I think we’ll call you 
Uffs.” 

The dog was still wagging his tail, but the cop 
was looking back two, three, nearly four years. 
He was looking again at the ruined village in Lor¬ 
raine that had come as the first sign of real war 
to the wide-eyed men in olive drab who filled the 
big truck. There was a church without steeple or 
roof, and with holes for windows; and the usual 
piles of brick and plaster and half-standing houses 
lined the little winding streets. They had stood 
like that, a scar against the sunlit hills, since that 
first August. But to the men in the truck they 
were new, and strangely different. Here and there 
a French woman stood in a doorway, with chil¬ 
dren clinging to her skirts as she took wondering 
note of “les Americains,” at last, on their way to 
the front. When the truck stopped at the cross¬ 
roads, a small girl had picked up a yellow mongrel 
beside her, and in dumb show proffered the gift 


265 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

toward the big men in the truck. Pennee? 
Pennee?” came the understanding chorus from the 
doughboy. The little girl had shaken her head. 
“Come on, I’ll take him,” and Sergeant Kane had 
reached down and gathered the pup into his arms. 
“He’ll get nothing to eat around here,” he said, 
“he’s all skin and bones now. All right, little 
girl—compree. Partee now.” The truck rumbled 
off to the north. “You said it,” corroborated a 
private, “no uffs in this country—no nothing.” 
Although not referred to in the field service regu¬ 
lations, the existence of “uffs,” which is accurate 
doughboy French for eggs, is an important test 
of countryside possibilities. “ ’Bout as big as a 
couple of uffs, himself,” came disparagingly from 
under a tin hat in the back of the truck, as the 
small ball of yellow made himself at home. From 
that moment he was “Uffs,” to the whole com¬ 
pany. He was even accorded the freedom of the 
battalion, for it is a natural bond that draws one 
stray to another—and the soldier is the saddest 
stray of them all. “Uffs” lasted two happy 
months. That was a fair average. When he had 
gone, the sergeant found a hole in his affections 
that was never quite filled. 

As Sergeant Kane, of the A. E. F., came back 
to the world of Patrolman Kane, of Traffic A, 
he picked up Uffs, dirt and all, and rubbed the 


266 


“Uffs”’ 


yellow head with his big hand, until the puppy’s 
delight was beyond all bounds. Then he called 
toward the taxis. 

“Jake!” 

“Yeah!” 

“Come here a minute, will yer?” 

“Sure!” 

“Take care of him, will yer? All of yer, 
together—he can’t stay out here. I’ll have him 
out o’ your way soon. Go ahead now, Uffs, it’s 
all right!” 

He handed the dog over to the driver, brushed 
off his clothes, and turned to the traffic that had 
waited patiently while he journeyed across the 
years to France and back. Uffs looked doubtfully 
over the driver’s shoulder as he was borne away, 
but the discipline of trust was there, and his mas¬ 
ter had spoken. 

There was no “higher authority” on the side¬ 
walk, however, and those curious driver folk 
were rightly regarded by Uffs as no more than so 
many instruments of a morning’s enjoyment. He 
went at it with the zest of a man who has made 
his pile for the year and is off on a long vacation. 
First there was cab inspection. No recess of those 
dismal interiors was too remote to be thoroughly 
sniffed out, nor was there robe too sacred to be 
chewed—if he could get away with it. There 


267 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

were sudden leaps, here and there, with those 
clumsy drivers in headlong pursuit. Sometimes 
the puppy legs floundered, and a pair of strong 
hands closed about the panting yellow object and 
pulled it back to earth. It was in one of the lulls 
of the campaign that a daintily stockinged ankle 
stepped up from under the flapping awning and 
was followed into the taxi by its daintily stock¬ 
inged mate. With a desperate plunge, Uffs leaped 
in, a good third, just in time to escape the closing 
door. “Oh!” There was a little scream from 
the interior. “Hey-y, you mut—come out o’ 
that!” And, by hind leg and tail, a baffled driver 
pulled his gratuitous passenger out of a hastily 
reopened cab-door. There was a guffaw from the 
drivers who had escaped this particular form of 
catastrophe. 

“Say, Officer, he’s in again!” bellowed Jake 
to the traffic cop. “Better get a halter for that 
dog—he’s orful strong!” 

From time to time, Uffs would appear between 
the taxis and bark hopefully at the cop; he made 
a hoarse little noise that sounded like “uffs, uffs!” 
When Kane waved him back, he would wait there, 
with longing look and argumentative little whine, 
until a more forceful gesture sent him scurrying 
to the sidewalk again. Only once did he gain his 
objective, and that was when he attached himself, 


268 


“Uffs” 

by dog’s right, to a small boy and girl whom Kane 
was convoying across the street. That children, 
as well as soldiers, belong to stray dogs is well 
understood in the brotherhood of “muts”—and 
Uffs was clearly a “mut.” It was with an air of 
easy assurance that he trotted along with the little 
convoy, his tongue lolling forth importantly, as 
he did his part in the job. When the expedition 
had passed, he was unceremoniously chased back 
again. 

As the morning wore on, the gray clouds above 
were followed by great dimpled masses of snowy 
white, driven low and fast, and covering the sky 
with the sweep of their advance. Patches of blue 
began to appear, and then the sun shone warm and 
clear. Below, there was just a hint of green in 
the brown of the bushes that still live, south of 
Fourteenth Street. A truck rolled by toward 
Washington Square, with a swaying load of park 
benches, newly painted a bright green. The first 
flower-wagon was going slowly up the avenue, 
along the curb, starting and stopping as the red 
and white gleam of its geraniums and hyacinths 
brought customers hurrying out of doors and 
down steps to see if summer were really coming. 
An umbrella-mender came singsonging through 
the side street, and, to make assurance doubly 
sure, a hurdy-gurdy, manned by a swarthy attend- 


269 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

ant, was standing in front of the high building, 
and grinding out the “Marseillaise” with a gusto 
gloriously attuned to the charging clouds above. 
“Aux armes citoyens!” A man walking south 
straightened up and walked faster—“Ah!” he 
breathed, and there was a new light in his eye. 
The drivers looked up, and the cop started as 
though something had come back inside of him. 
Under the arch in the square a twirl of color 
flashed and vanished, as the wind played with the 
memorial flag that streamed from the white pole 
beyond. And then a great patch of blue let down 
a flood of sunshine to reassure every living thing. 
Spring had come, in lower Fifth Avenue. 

There was no doubt about this, in the mind of 
Uffs. His day had arrived. He capped the cli¬ 
max of his ecstasy when he bounded into the hall¬ 
way of the high building and, by way of self-intro¬ 
duction, began pawing vigorously at the long tails 
of the doorman’s brass buttoned coat. That was 
his big mistake. Perhaps spring had not pene¬ 
trated the carpeted aisles of this temple of pro¬ 
priety. Perhaps it had come only to the doorstep. 
Uffs did not know that. The doorman turned 
and shot an exasperated kick at the yellow object, 
then pursued it out of the door, down the steps 
and across the sidewalk, to the very end of the 
long awning. At the curb he let go another kick, 


270 


“Uffs” 


that grazed the hind-quarters of the puppy, who 
was scampering for his life now, with tail between 
his legs in genuine fright. 

“Damn yer—I’ll teach yer ter come runnin’ 
’round halls!” 

As the yellow fluff flashed into the street, there 
was a yelp of fear, and then the puppy pulled up 
just short of the wheels of a passing car and 
stood trembling, in panic-stricken uncertainty. 
There was a quick look from the crossing, and a 
quicker stride to the curb. The doorman was still 
glowering, when a heavy gray-gloved hand fell 
on his shoulder and pushed him back, back toward 
the steps, while a pair of blue eyes looked some¬ 
thing not far short of bloodshed. 

“There, stand up now!” The hand shook the 
doorman’s shoulder as though the bones would 
rattle out. “Stand up, and fight with your fists— 
if yer got any!” The cop dropped his hand. 
“Kickin’ a little dog around like that”—he gave 
the doorman a look of slow disgust—“you— 
make—me—sick! I’ve a good mind to lock yer 
up, for cruelty to animals. No,” he reflected, 
“a punch in the face ’d be better for you.” His 
fist closed, and there was the slightest approach 
toward drawing back his right arm. “Now leave 
’im alone, d’yer hear me? It’ll be healthy for 
yer!” 


271 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

He turned and walked to where the puppy was 
waiting, squatted on the sidewalk and much sub¬ 
dued. As the crooked tail began wagging uncer¬ 
tainly, Kane gave the upturned head a reassuring 
pat. “Pretty near gotcha that time,” he com¬ 
mented. Then he looked up quickly. A big truck 
was grinding through the side street. The driver 
was enclosed in a box-like compartment that 
looked like the cab of a locomotive, and the body 
of the truck almost darkened the street in its im¬ 
mensity. Across the great side appeared the 
words “Mammoth Express” in gold letters 
against the green background. And there were 
two number plates, one in red for “D. C.,” and 
the other in blue, below, for “Maryland.” Kane 
made the middle of the street in two jumps, and 
held up his hand. The truck monster stopped 
with a grumble of resignation, and a head ap¬ 
peared at the cab window, with another close 
behind. There was a grin of recognition from the 
driver. 

“Hello, John—thought you was off to-day,” he 
called to Kane. 

“No, I was busy for a minute over there.” The 
cop jerked a thumb backward at the awning. 
“Say, Mac, I got a job for yer—it’s a queer one. 
Y’see that yeller mut there”—he pointed toward 
Uffs, watching from the curb— “Well, I gotta 


272 


“Uffs” 


get the poor little devil out o’ here, quick. Some¬ 
body threw him off a truck this morning, an' he’s 
been here ever since. He nearly cashed in under 
a car only a minute ago. Will yer take him along 
an’ drop him somewhere in Jersey, at some good- 
lookin’ farmhouse, where they’ll take him in?” 

Kane called to the curb. “Hey, Uffs, come 
here!” As the puppy loped across, Kane picked 
him up and looked at him. “Not so bad, for a 
mut-” 

The driver had been gazing curiously at the 
dog. A queer expression came over his face, and 
he started when Kane called to the puppy. 

“That’s a funny one,” he said. “He made me 
think o’ somethin’, an’ then you called him ‘Uffs’.” 
He looked again, and smiled. “He’s a ringer, 
John,” he mused, with a glance at the cop. The 
two overseas men were silent as they grinned at 
the dog. 

When the big truck had rumbled off, Kane 
walked slowly back to his post, and he was mut¬ 
tering to himself. “Well, it’s better for him,” he 
said. “Mac’ll put ’im in a good place—an’ he 
wouldn’t last another hour here.” But he felt 
lonely, as he had felt four years ago, when for a 
day the whole company had been unhappy. Above, 
the April sky was clouding over again; the street 
seemed bleak and wintry. 


273 



Van Tassel and Big Bill 

At the crossing Kane found the man on patrol, 
filling in as traffic cop. 

“Much obliged, Ed.” 

“All right, John.” 

The patrolman stood hesitating. 

“What’s up?” said Kane quietly. 

“Maybe trouble, John—I dunno. Y’ know 
that new special deputy the mayor just appointed? 
Made a lot o’ money out o’ the war—fancy 
dresser—little moustache—I forgot his name.” 

“Rothstein?” 

“That’s it. He went by while you were after 
the dog—I was on the other corner. He puts 
out his head and looks around, then he tells the 
driver to slow up, pulls out a pencil and makes a 
note on a piece o’ paper. Looked good an’ sore. 
Y’ know, he’s stuck on bein’ saluted-” 

“Yes, I know,” interrupted Kane, disgustedly. 

“They say he’s in strong at City Hall—nothin’ 
but a fad with him, but—off post, an’ all that— 
you know. An’ that dog story won’t stand up. 
When he’d gone, I come over—might cover you 
if any more come along.” 

Kane looked serious. “See if you can pick up 
anything, Ed,” he said. 

The man on patrol took up his beat again, with 
a nonchalant swing of the club, as though there 
had been nothing of import in the conference. 


274 



“Uffs” 


At the end of an hour he had been in communica¬ 
tion with individuals at headquarters, at Traffic 
A, and the precinct station-house, and at the City 
Hall. Also, he had been in touch with Big Bill 
Baker, his best bet over in the Municipal Build¬ 
ing, who, besides being a friend of the young cop 
from Traffic A, was a messenger in the service 
of the city government—which gave him unusual 
opportunities for “picking up things.” These 
communications were neither official nor of record, 
nor did they interfere with police duty. But they 
were valuable. They were the “grape-vine.” 

At the end of another hour, a big boned man, 
with gray eyes and heavy grayish moustache under 
a black slouch hat, was casually crossing the ave¬ 
nue at Patrolman Kane’s post, on traffic. 

“Hello, John,” said Big Bill quietly, as he 
stopped for a moment. “It’s bad—you’re re¬ 
ported in for transfer.” Kane’s eyes kindled. 
“I’ve got a hunch, though—I’ll tip yer off later. 
Leave it ter me.” 

Having passed the time of day in this routine 
fashion, Big Bill went on, with every appearance 
of unconcern. It was better not to be seen talk¬ 
ing to Kane. Not that it mattered to Big Bill. 
He was regular and he had a leader; Tom Dono¬ 
van could handle any trouble that would ever 
perch on his doorstep. But Kane was just a cop 


275 



Van Tassel and Big Bill 

and a soldier, who didn’t know a leader from a 
wooden Indian. And Kane was in trouble. The 
fewer people he was seen talking to on post, the 
better. 

Kane knew that he was in trouble. The grape¬ 
vine had yielded messages from several directions. 
At headquarters the special deputy’s demand for 
his transfer was being held for investigation; 
there were no enemies in that citadel. But special 
deputy police commissioners are powerful persons, 
and the last man to incur the displeasure of one 
of those irresponsible satellites had been taken 
out of Traffic A, and sent to patrol the sandy 
wastes of City Island. Kane’s heart sank as he 
thought of that. He had just moved the wife 
and kids out of the flat in Charles Street and down 
to Staten Island, where they could all live in the 
country. His savings had gone into the first pay¬ 
ment on one of the tiny, tax-exempt “bungaloos” 
that were beginning to dot that rural borough. 
He was happy, and fixed, and broke. City Island 1 
That was half a day’s journey from his new 
home—he would be lucky to see his family once 
in a month. As he glanced at the yellow wheel 
with the horse’s head on his left sleeve, he pic¬ 
tured the change from the regular hours of traffic 
duty—nine to six-thirty, with Sundays and holi¬ 
days off—to the long and short “swings” of 


276 


“Uffs” 


patrol, with its night work and long stretches on 
reserve. But, back of all that, it was like ripping 
off his chevrons—and for what? Because the 
special deputy had lost a salute—for that he was 
to be disgraced! 

He handled his traffic automatically, as he 
turned the thing over and over in his mind, but 
as the afternoon grew late, his face hardened. 
Patrolman Kane was as ordinary a commuting 
husband and father as any other bundle carrier 
on the cross-bay circuit. Under his brass buttons 
and blue the same sort of human heart registered 
the same job lot of virtues and faults, smiles and 
grouches, that it registers under civilian garb. 
There was the added tradition of courage that 
inhabits New York’s ten thousand cops, that 
might be called different. But, by and large, he 
was the same as any other man, and he could not 
understand the kind of “justice” that was now 
overtaking him. Neither had he any idea what 
to do about it. 

Big Bill was more resourceful. While Kane, 
on post, was shrouded in gloom, Big Bill was 
basking in the soft lights of a banker’s parlor in 
Pine Street. He was talking earnestly to a well- 
set-up young man who had met him there by ap¬ 
pointment. The young man listened attentively 
but doubtfully. 


277 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

“I tell yer, he can do it,” repeated the mes¬ 
senger. “This feller Rothstein’s always skatin’ 
on thin ice down here, an’ your uncle’s different— 
why, he could buy that feller out an’ never miss 
the change! He only needs ter say the word, an’ 
its done! I got enough dope on this Wall Street 
bunch ter know what Van Tassel & Tobey says, 
goes—down here, anyway. If yer put it up good 
an’ strong—an’ you’re alderman, Jimmy, an’ the 
kind that looks out fer your friends—why, I 
know the breed your uncle is—he’s one o’ them 
thoroughbreds that’ll go the limit fer a man like 
Kane—he’d be glad ter do it fer him!” 

“Oh, Uncle Bob’s end is all right,” laughed the 
Honorable James Van Tassel, city father from 
the 75th aldermanic district. “He knows Kane 
just as I do—every one who goes by that corner 
knows him—and he’ll be only too glad to help. 

But I don’t see why this man Rothstein should 
_»» 

A door opened, and the senior partner of Van 
Tassel & Tobey entered, tall, spare, and alert. 

“Oh, good morning, Jimmy, what’s up?” 

“Good morning, Uncle Bob. This is Mr. 
Baker, who helps me in the district-” 

“Ha, ha, politics again? Still at it, eh? Even 
after two years in the army! Well—glad to meet 


278 




“Uffs” 

you, Mr. Baker—sit down and be comfortable— 
now, fire away!” 

The alderman explained his mission, with sun¬ 
dry interpolations from Big Bill, and one interrup¬ 
tion from the banker of, “Oh, yes, I know him— 
fine-looking chap—soldier, wasn’t he?” When 
they were through, the senior partner looked 
puzzled. 

“Well, I could do it—” he smiled quizzically, 
with the tips of his fingers together before him, 
as he hesitated. “I’m not anxious to ask favors 
of that fellow—but—well, I guess there’s no 
harm.” 

He turned to the telephone. “Quite a drive on 
Sunset Oil to-day,” he soliloquized absently, his 
fingers drumming on the table as he waited for 
the call. “Rothstein caught pretty bad, they say 
—don’t know if he’ll get out.” Then a secretary 
came with a message, and he disappeared behind 
a glass door. In ten minutes he returned, chuck- 
ling. 

“Well, I talked to him about your precious 
cop, Jimmy. He seemed to have forgotten all 
about it, at first. Then he remembered—said he 
bore no ill will—it was just a disciplinary threat— 
whatever that is. Said he’d fix it up if he found 
time. And then he said some other things— 
about Sunset Oil. He’s very busy to-day!” The 


279 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

banker chuckled again. “Well, perhaps we can 
help him a little,” he added. 

“Thanks awfully, uncle,” said Jimmy. 

“Say, Mr. Van Tassel, that’s a white thing yer 
done,” burst in Big Bill. “Yer’ll never regret it 
—take it from me ! That’s white, that is!” 

He gave the banker a grip that made him wince. 

“Say, he’s a reg’lar feller, that uncle o’ yours,” 
he said to Jimmy, admiringly, on the way out. 
“Now, I gotta get busy—no tellin’ what that 
guy’ll do unless we keep after ’im—yer ain’t got 
nothin’ till yer got it.” 

Bill said good-by to his alderman, and went on 
the circuitous ways that sometimes accompany the 
carrying of municipal messages. 

When Kane went off post at six-thirty, he had 
no further light on his impending punishment. 
Even Big Bill had not reported. As he sank 
wearily into a seat in the smoking-cabin of the 
ferry-boat, he wondered how he would tell “the 
wife” about it—that was the next hurdle! If 
he had something definite to tell, Maggie would 
understand; but this was different. He could 
wait until to-morrow—no, she’d be sure to see it 
in his face to-night. And then she’d begin to 
worry about the house. He thought of how she 
had hugged him when he first showed her the 
little home, of how the color had come into her 


280 


“Uffis” 


cheeks, and the cough had nearly gone, since they 
had lived there, and he fell into depths of despair. 

A cop from the lower Fifth Avenue precinct, 
off duty and homeward bound, sat down next to 
him. 

“How’d’yer make out, John?” 

“Dunno yet.” 

“Big stiff. It’s bad enough, the way they got 
the lieutenants buzzin’ ’round now, without shoo- 
fly deputies buttin’ in.” Kane was silent. “Might 
as well spend all yer time in the trial room, an’ 
cut out patrollin’ altogether. I’m ready to chuck 
the job.” 

“You’re not married,” said Kane. 

They finished the trip in silence. 

“Well, good luck,” said the man from the pre¬ 
cinct, as they parted at the ferry-house, and 
hurried off to their different cars. “Wish I could 
help.” 

On the front porch of the “bungaloo” that was 
sixth in a closely set row of two-story frame 
houses, Mrs. John Kane, with a small Kane in 
plentifully patched breeches alongside, was wait¬ 
ing as her husband came up the road. As she 
came down the steps, there was a whoop as the 
patched breeches made a rush for the blue 
uniform. 

“Johnny, be careful—baby’s asleep!” 


281 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

When the big man in blue let her go, she looked 
at him curiously—he had seemed to hold her 
longer than usual. Then she remembered. 

“There’s a message for you, John—telephone, 
at the drug-store—I nearly forgot. Want you 
to call up at eight—it’s nearly that now. Here’s 
the number.” 

“Say who it was?” inquired Kane, as carelessly 
as possible. 

“No, just the number.” She searched his face 
with her eyes. “John, there’s something wrong,” 
she said. “Is it bad?” 

“No, it’s all right, Mag. I’ll tell yer when I’m 
back—I’ll only be a minute.” But she looked 
long after him as he went down the road. 

In the drug-store at the corner the clerk volun¬ 
teered: “He seemed awful anxious—wanted you 
to be sure and call him.” 

“All right,” said Kane. “Well, here goes,” 
he added, to himself, as he got central. The con¬ 
nection to the place on First Avenue, in Manhat¬ 
tan, was poor, but this much he managed to get: 
“This you, John? Well, I been waitin’ for yer. 
Yeah, this is Bill—yer guessed right. Here’s 
what I got. It’s all fixed up. I say it’s all fixed 
up—can yer hear me now? That’s all. I tell yer 
it’s all fixed—don’tcha believe me? How about 
the deputy? I called ’im off. Yeah. Well, never 


282 




“Uffs” 

mind how I did it. I’ll tell yer termorrer. Yeah, 
it’s O K —on the level. He didn’t come across 
till late, or I’d ’a’ told yer—headquarters only 
had it an hour ago. Aw, ferget it—you know me. 
Ferget it. Go home an’ tell the wife. I’ll see yer 
to-morrow. S’long.” 

As Kane walked hazily out of the drug-store, 
and started to cross the turnpike toward the side 
road, he was still trying to grasp this sudden turn 
in his affairs. It was hard to believe. And yet— 
Big Bill knew his book. Yes, he could bank on 
that. Whether it was his own mental fog, or the 
gathering dusk, he never knew, but he did not see 
the big truck that was bearing down on him from 
the right until he was almost under it. Nor did 
he hear a cryptic conversation in the locomotive¬ 
like cab. 

“Is this the road?” 

“Yes, this is it—I was here only Sunday week, 
to see the new house. Careful now, while I slow 
down. There, go ahead—easy now—don’t hurt 
him. That’s good.” Something had gone floun¬ 
dering out of the cab and into the grass on the 
other side of the road. The gears scrunched and 
grated, and as the truck jerked forward, the voice 
went on, more buoyantly, “That’s one on my old 
sergeant, all right—that dog’ll nose him out in 
an hour. Now we gotta make time—lost a lot 


283 



Van Tassel and Big Bill 

cornin’ around this way.” Then, after a moment, 
“But wait’ll we go by him on post next time— 
won’t he gimme hell?” And the driver and his 
helper mingled their laughter with the roar of the 
receding truck. 

As Kane jumped for safety and came back to 
earth, his cop’s instinct sent his first look after 
the number plates of the vanishing vehicle. All 
he could see was two swinging flashes of color, 
red over blue, framed in the circular glow of the 
tail-light, as the shadowy monster went roaring 
into the night. Then he turned quickly. An 
indistinguishable object was moving toward him, 
from the grass on the other side of the road. It 
halted warily, on the edge. There was a sudden 
rush—and the yellow pup was plunging headlong 
toward the cop, with excited barks of unrestrained 
joy. 

“Well, I’ll be—hello, Uffs!” said Kane. He 
could believe anything now. As the dog put both 
paws up on his master’s knees, with the crooked 
tail wagging furiously, and barked toward the 
head that was up there so high above the level of 
yellow dogs, Kane reached down and gathered the 
little vagrant up in his arms. 

“Come on, Uffs, we’ll go home now.” 

And they went up the road together. 


284 


“HEADS UP!” 

W HEN Captain Andrew Nichols of the 
A. E. F., who looked far too merry to 
be a soldier, came home from France and 
caught his wife to his arms in the old house on 
Murray Hill it seemed as though all New York 
could not hold the overflow of his happiness. 
When the division paraded up Fifth Avenue and 
then Uncle Sam discharged them all, the captain 
was happily content to see the old uniform put 
away in camphor. He settled gracefully into 
civies, as he became just Andy Nichols again. 
He was home. Then he went with Nance on 
their second honeymoon, and it seemed even more 
precious than the first. 

It was after that—even after the little Andy 
came, to make his young father happier than 
ever—that fate came down on easy-going Andy 
Nichols, of Murray Hill and the Argonne, and 
with one stroke wiped out the fortune that had 
been his from birth. It mattered not that some 
who had chosen to turn the war into profit had 
made their pile out of the nation’s need and had 
kept it. Fate has strange fancies, and it was 


285 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

Andy, who had soldiered in France, that she 
picked for a fall. 

First they moved into the little apartment down 
in Eleventh Street, where Nance wrestled with 
all the petty compressions and annoyances of flat 
life. Then, for the first time in his leisure-loving 
existence, Andy set out to hunt for a job. It was 
lucky that Mr. Thomas Sharpies, of the ancient 
firm of Sharpies & Staples, fine hardware, thought 
more of Andy’s war record than he did of his 
own hardware. He thought even more of the 
memory of his friendship with Andy’s father, 
though he was considerate enough to say little 
about that when he put the son to work. 

Sharpies was known in the big Duane Street 
store as “the old screw,” but even Andy Nichols, 
who hated hardware with a holy hate, came to 
respect his fairness. More than ever did he 
approve of the Sharpies judgment when he was 
promoted to take charge of the fancy new branch 
in fashionable Fifty-seventh Street. Andy was 
more at home up there than he was down in 
Duane Street. When he opened the branch he 
decided it was time to popularize hardware. 

“I believe there’s poetry in those damn gimlets 
if I can find it,” he had said to his friend Jimmy 
Van Tassel, who had gone through the Argonne 
with him, but still had his patrimony. Jimmy 

286 


i 


“Heads Up ! rt 

was an alderman—had been, before the war. 
Then he became an alderman all over again, and 
his friends said he was still crazy. Andy had 
said so himself. 

“Don’t believe it,” replied the Honorable 
James Van Tassel, with proper political caution, 
“may be rhythm in hammers—but not in gimlets.” 

“Yes, even in saws—ugh!” Andy groaned. 

But now the day of proof had dawned. The 
new store had opened, that very morning, and 
Andy, rounding the corner into Fifty-seventh 
Street after a good lunch, smiled with amused 
anticipation as he thought of Jimmy’s promised 
visit of inspection. There was a child-like com¬ 
pleteness to Andy’s smile that not even the grim¬ 
ness of his army experience had worn oh. It 
disarmed suspicion and provoked affection, just 
as the clean-cut set of his chin suggested ability 
to command. Old Sharpies had done well to 
send him up to Fifty-seventh Street to sell hard¬ 
ware. People liked Andy Nichols on sight. 
They liked him as they passed him in Fifty- 
seventh Street this October afternoon, smiling his 
way along with a sunny courage soundly superior 
to past reverses. As he turned the corner he 
looked sharply ahead. 

“Ah, there it is!” he exclaimed. “Wait till 
Jimmy sees it—he’ll nearly drop dead!” 


287 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

Yes, it was there—the most prominent object 
in the block—a life-size gilded figure of a small 
boy, with foot upraised, sawing away at a recal¬ 
citrant gilded beam. Beside the boy rested a 
large gilded tool box which, according to the 
legend of its big black label—easily visible forty 
feet away—contained the model Sharpies & 
Staples collection of “Good Tools for Good 
Boys.” The whole business rested on a high 
base on the sidewalk directly in front of the new 
uptown branch of “Sharpies & Staples. Fine 
Hardware. Founded 1852.” In the October 
sun the statue shone like a burnished dome, a 
glistening minaret. 

“Beautiful,” murmured Andy, “beautiful!” 
But his chuckle belied the tribute. 

In front of the store he stopped, in high glee 
as he spied Van Tassel coming toward him from 
the other direction, on time to the minute, but 
with head down, buried in his own thoughts. 

“Heads up!” Andy’s voice rang out with its 
old tone of command. 

Jimmy’s head came up with a jerk. He 
stopped as he recognized his friend. “Oh, hello, 
Andy,” he said dreamily. “It sounded natural— 
I was just thinking about—” 

“Yes, old snoozer—about mud—and corned 
willie—and mud—and—remember it, Jimmy? 


288 


“Heads Up! ” 

On the march, when the trucks come by in the 
night, and you hear the call come down the 
column—‘heads up!’—like the crack of a whip! 
Can you hear it?” 

“Ah, can I!” They stood looking at each 
other, grinning, but what they saw was the miles 
of the muddy roads of France. 

“Well, back to business—snap out of it!” 
Andy was briskness itself. “Turn to your left, 
Jimmy—look—and marvel!” 

The alderman turned, and marvelled. As he 
took in the statuary a slow smile began to at¬ 
tack him, spreading until it threatened a con¬ 
vulsion. 

“There you are,” cut in Andy, “song of the 
saw! Boy’s delight—over the top with saws 
and gimlets—teach ’em to be handy husbands 
about the home! Oh, we’ll save the race yet— 
if the boys’ fathers will only buy Sharpies & 
Staples tools!” He paused for breath, then 
added appealingly, “Beautiful, Jimmy? Life¬ 
like?” 

Yes, it was lifelike. It made Jimmy tired to 
look at it. He started to reply. “Very nice, 
Andy, except that—” 

They both paused, suddenly, as a little man in 
a brown derby hopped brightly between them and 
stood panting, with hand outstretched. 


289 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

“Hello, Dinny!” The laugh that was about 
to wreck Jimmy’s admiration of the statue 
changed to a grin of recognition as he took the 
hand of the Honorable Dennis Dineen, alderman 
for the district adjoining his own. Plum Street 
divided them geographically, and party lines 
politically, but there the chasm closed. They 
were friends. 

“Been chasin’ you all over town.” Dinny 
cocked his head as he caught his breath. He 
spoke in little explosions and his little shoebutton 
eyes kept darting this way and that, like a bird’s. 
In the district they called him “Sparrow Dineen.” 

“Yes, we’re both a bit off our beat—oh— 
Alderman Dineen—my friend Mr. Nichols.” 

“Nichols? Put her there,” chirped the spar¬ 
row. Then he looked up at Jimmy. “Can I 
see you for a minute? Only a minute, Mr. 
Nichols,” he explained. 

“Oh, that’s all right,” said Andy, as he moved 
off out of hearing. “Go ahead. I’ll be right 
over here.” 

“Jimmy, I got sump’n to tell you,” confided 
Dinny in an excited whisper. “Keep a secret? 
I’m goin’ to—put your head down—closer—I’m 
goin’ to—get married—ha, ha—yeah!” He 
looked up uncertainly. 

“You don’t—say so!” Jimmy fell on the little 


290 




“Heads Up!” 

fellow with a grip of delight that made him 
dance. 

“Yeah—an' it’s, it’s Kitty Doheny—Ed Do- 
heny’s girl—you know him—lives in your dis¬ 
trict!” 

“Why, yes.” Jimmy pretended to remember. 
'‘Why, yes, of course!” But Dinny’s sudden 
seriousness of expression saved him further 
trouble. 

“It’s about him I came up,” he said. “I got 
a favor to get off you, Jimmy—this afternoon. 
Doheny’s pretty old, and they’ve taken him to 
Bellevue Hospital. Can’t last long—just kind 
o’ old and tired—poor feller.” Dinny paused, 
then began again. “Jimmy, you got him a job 
once—I don’t know where—and they had to let 
him go. Couldn’t lift the big boxes or sump’n. 
And he’s asking for you, to tell you how he did 
his best to make good—just a bug he’s got— 
wants to square himself—Kitty’s been at the 
hospital and told me so. Could you see him— 
this afternoon? Just a word—anything—to 
make him feel better?” Dinny’s eyes seemed 
troubled as he looked up. 

“Yes, I will, Dinny. Yes—and I’ll go down 
now.” His hand was on his friend’s shoulder. 

“Jimmy—you’re a reg’lar feller.” They 
shook hands and parted. “A reg’lar feller”— 


291 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

Jimmy felt a glow of exhilaration as he' repeated 
the words to himself. That was the highest 
compliment of all in the Dineen vocabulary. 
Then he turned to rejoin his waiting hardware 
friend. 

“Andy, I’ve got to get along,” he said briskly. 
“Hurry call to a hospital. Sorry.” 

“There you go again!” chortled Andy gaily. 
“Always hospitals—women, polling places and 
hospitals—great job, that politics! Catch me 
getting into that kind of a merry-go-round!” 

“More at home with hardware?” inquired 
Jimmy innocently. 

Andy’s wink said plainly, “No!” as they 
parted, grinning. 

Two minutes later, in the Fifty-seventh Street 
store of Sharpies & Staples the afternoon began 
to break badly for the new branch manager. 
When he sat down at his big desk after a shower 
of cheery salutations to the “help,” he picked 
up a piece of paper that said “Bureau of En¬ 
cumbrances” on top and then bade him, in the 
name’ of the City of New York, remove the gilded 
statue nuisance that obstructed the city’s side¬ 
walk—and remove it “forthwith, under penalty 
of” dire things. Andy read it twice. “Ah, my 
beautiful statue,” he soliloquized, in amused dis¬ 
may, “my Venus de Hardware—alas, poor 


292 


“Heads Up!” 

Yorick—.” He got no further, for he remem¬ 
bered then, with a cold chill, what his hymn to 
hardware had cost. Ugh! The shadow of 
Sharpies crossed his day. The “old screw” 
would want to know. Andy began to grow indig¬ 
nant. Why, the streets were lined with barber 
poles—even wooden Indians offering bad cigars 
—why not his golden beauty? This was rank 
favoritism—where was Jimmy? Jimmy, who 
knew about politics—he could fix it. But Jimmy 
had gone. 

Then the telephone rang, and Andy’s face 1 that 
was so clearly meant for sunshine gradually be¬ 
came wreathed in beads of cold sweat. Yes, old 
Sharpies, on the other end of the wire 1 , wanted to 
know. Mr. Nichols would please come down to 
see him at once. There was something about 
“don’t know the first thing about your own gov¬ 
ernment” thrown in that made Andy’s face still 
damper as he hung up. No, he didn’t know 
much about government and “politics,” and didn’t 
pretend to. That was for the “politicians,” for 
Jimmy, who had plenty of time. He was too 
busy making a living. But he would like to have 
known about that sidewalk law. He looked 
troubled enough as he hurried out of the store 
and off to the subway. 

When, an hour later, Andy emerged from the 


293 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

Sharpies sanctum in the rear of the big store in 
Duane Street and made his way absently out to 
the open air he looked as though some one had 
been torturing him with his own tools. But with 
the chastening he wore the look of relief that 
comes when the worst of a bad jam is over. One 
sentence kept running through his mind in letters 
that burned—“I’m going to continue you in your 
job”—he remembered that! The rest had been 
almost as short. Old Sharpies, white-haired, 
quick and keen, knew all about the sidewalk 
trouble—they had served a duplicate notice down¬ 
town. And Sharpies seemed to know a lot about 
government, and “politics.” He said they were 
the same thing—and every man’s job. 

“It seems to me like a trust,” he had con¬ 
cluded, gently enough, “a trust handed down by 
our fathers, from the days of ’76, to keep good 
the government they gave us, for the sake of our 
children. Yes, to us in trust for our children. 
Just as though some one left a legacy for your 
own children—you’d guard it, sacredly. That 
wouldn’t take much time from making a living— 
only a little—but you’d give it that little, for your 
children, wouldn’t you?” He had said it so 
quietly, with a word of appreciation of Andy’s 
war service, that Andy had been more moved by 
the “old screw” than he could have believed. 


294 


“Heads Up!” 

“In trust for our children”—his thoughts flashed 
back to the little flat as he walked. If Andy’s 
world of friends had been alongside they would 
have wondered what was so strangely taking the 
place of his usual sunny smile. But he was quite 
alone, as he went down into the subway. 

At Fourteenth Street he came out of his rev¬ 
erie with a start. “Good heavens!” he ex¬ 
claimed, and then with a leap plunged out of the 
car just as the door closed behind him. With 
just a suggestion of the delighted grin with which 
he always greeted a good joke on himself he 
hurried up the stairs and into the nearest tele¬ 
phone booth. “Saturday—last day—and I have¬ 
n’t registered!” he exclaimed as the nickel went 
rattling down the slot. “And Nance registered 
four days ago,” he reflected, with a twinge of 
humiliation, as he waited. When he had can¬ 
celled his golf engagement for the afternoon, he 
called up the store in Fifty-seventh Street, told 
them with a pang to take in the gilded statue, 
and said they might look for him Monday morn¬ 
ing. Then he sallied into the street. He’d reg¬ 
ister, himself, right now, but, more than that, 
he’d dig out a few other slackers and make them 
register too—he’d show old Sharpies! 

At Sixth Avenue Andy pulled up sharp as he 
suddenly realized his ignorance of where to go, 


295 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

to register. Now, if Jimmy were about—this 
was Jimmy’s own district—but Jimmy was at that 
moment coming thoughtfully out of the big gates 
of Bellevue, and wishing, for his own part, that 
he might run across his friend Andy Nichols. 
He had something to tell him, something that 
old man Doheny had whispered, from his white 
bed in the big ward. 

When the cop at Sixth Avenue had expounded 
heavily on the whereabouts of registration, Andy 
found himself presently in the basement of the 
old school in Greenwich Avenue, answering 
“Nichols, Andrew—age 31—born U S A—mar¬ 
ried” and all the rest, as the clerks entered their 
varied ink-tracks in the big white books on the 
table. After that he popped in and out of a 
canvas booth in great secrecy and dropped his 
blue enrollment envelope, decorated with a big 
black cross, into the wooden box by the table. 
There—he was registered! 

He looked around. Now for some of the 
slackers that were still in default! Now for a 
little good hunting to square up for that hare- 
and-hounds affair with Sharpies—when he had 
run hare to the Sharpies hounds—yes, it would 
be good sport to be the hounds for a while! Near 
the door he spied a big man with gray hair and 
moustache under a slouch hat, making pencil 


296 


“Heads Up!” 

marks on a piece of paper. “The very man,” 
exclaimed Andy under his breath, as he made for 
the doorway. 

“Is this Mr. Baker—Big Bill Baker?” he 
asked. The big man looked up, examined him 
searchingly, then broke into a grin. 

“Yeah, that’s me. How are yer, Mr. Nichols? 
How’s Jimmy?” 

“Fine! I saw him only a little while ago. 
Er—how on earth did you remember me? It’s 
two years since—” 

“Well, that’s a nice one—how about your re¬ 
memberin’ me?” 

Andy blushed a little and laughed. 

“Well, I see yer registered—what can I do 
for yer?” 

“Why, if you need any help getting other 
people out—I have a little time—if I could 
help—” 

“Sure, yer can help,” boomed Big Bill. “Now, 
wait a minute, till I see this list.” He scanned 
the piece of paper. “Let’s see—there’s some in 
the D’s—Davison—Dobbs—ah, there we are— 
Doheny—there’s one right handy by. Wait a 
minute—Mrs. Farrell!” Bill called to the other 
end of the room. “Woman captain—good 
worker,” he said in an explanatory aside, as a 
little woman in dark clothes and glasses came up. 


297 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

“Mrs. Farrell—Mr. Nichols. Shake. Friend 
o’ the alderman, Mrs. Farrell—wants to help 
out with the registration—” 

Andy was bowing and shaking hands with the 
woman captain. He was surprised to find what 
a pleasant combination of cheerfulness and under¬ 
standing she seemed to be. “I hope I can help 
a little,” he volunteered. 

“Oh, yes, I’m sure you can help a great deal,” 
she replied. “We need more workers—a great 
many more!” 

“Er—Mrs. Farrell.” Big Bill was studying 
the names on the list. “There’s Ed Doheny. 
He ain’t come out yet. And there’s Katherine 
Doheny, same address, Patchin Place. Daugh¬ 
ter, ain’t she?” 

“Yes. She hasn’t come out either.” 

“Well, how about Mr. Nichols takin’ a run 
around there an’ seein’ what’s doin’? It’s near 
by.” 

“Splendid! And we’ll have some more for 
you when you come back, Mr. Nichols. Thank 
you ever so much.” She left, with a smile of en¬ 
couragement. 

“It’s a little place,” said Big Bill. “Yer go 
in by an alley. Just back o’ Jefferson Market— 
can’t miss it. Try to get ’em out.” 

“Watch me!” replied the delighted Andy. 


298 


“Heads Up!” 

“I’ll deliver the Dohenys if it takes a train of 
cars!” And he clapped on his hat and went 
bustling off toward the corner. 

When he reached the inner end of the alley he 
stopped, in bewilderment. Before him there 
opened out a tiny street, bordered by two little 
rows of brick houses, and ending, just a few yards 
ahead, in a vine-covered trellis outlined against 
a high white fence. It looked like a miniature 
of a hundred years ago. And how suddenly 
quiet it was! The city’s roar seemed muffled and 
far away. Only the trees that bent over the 
little houses rustled dreamily as they scattered the 
benediction of their last October leaves on the 
narrow sidewalks below. Overhead the after¬ 
noon sun traced queer patterns on the old bricks 
as it squinted through the branches of the big 
trees. Andy stood wondering if he was really 
in New York. 

Then he pulled the old-fashioned bell at the 
first door. The kindly looking woman who an¬ 
swered the tinkle filled the door as she held it 
open. “Doheny? Yes, upstairs—second floor 
front.” She turned her head. “Doheny—Do¬ 
heny!” she called up the stairs. Andy went care¬ 
fully up the narrow stairs, the music of the call 
still ringing in his ears. At the door he knocked. 

“Come!” He could just hear the voice. It 


299 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

sounded like a little girl’s. He opened the door 
carefully. 

“Oh, I’m sorry—” Andy drew back. The 
last thing he had expected to find was a pretty 
girl in tears. Yet there she was, in the big 
rocker by the old marble fireplace, with a wisp 
of a handkerchief in her lap and her blue eyes 
telling their story all too plainly. He caught a 
glint of the light hair against the dark chair, of 
the white trimmings on the dark dress, and the 
extraordinarily pretty face between. He thought 
she must be about eighteen. 

“You can come in,” she said, in a tired little 
way, as she picked up her handkerchief. 

“I didn’t mean to intrude.” Andy was thor¬ 
oughly embarrassed. “You see—er—my name’s 
Nichols—Andy Nichols—and—you haven’t reg¬ 
istered, you know!” He wound up triumphantly. 

“Oh, you’re from the school?” 

“Yes, from the school.” He stood fingering 
his hat. “Er—you’re Miss Doheny, aren’t 
you?” 

“Yes. I’m Kitty Doheny.” She began to 
smile, with just a faint little flicker of amusement, 
as Andy still stood, at a loss what to say next. 
Then her eyes seemed to fill again, as she looked 
away. 

“Well—er—” Andy felt he had to say some- 


300 


“Heads Up!” 

thing—anything at all to keep her steady. “You 
see, I’m new at this—it isn’t my regular business. 
I’m really in the hardware business—Sharpies & 
Staples—saws, gimlets—” He stopped short. 
The tearful little trouble in the big chair was sit¬ 
ting bolt upright, her blue eyes staring. 

“Sharpies & Staples?” she gasped. 

“Yes, hardware, you know—hammers, chisels 
—that sort of thing.” 

“Oh, I know.” She stood up and faced him, 
then spoke rapidly. “Do you remember a man 
named Doheny—a little old man—who worked 
for you once? Mr. Van Tassel got him the job, 
and then you let him go. He couldn’t lift the 
boxes. He tried, but—” She began unrolling 
the little patch of handkerchief that her hand 
clutched so tightly. Andy remembered. 

“Yes, poor old fellow,” "he said. Then he 
stopped and looked his question. 

“My father,” said Kitty Doheny. But she 
went on, as though suddenly inspired. “Mr. 
Nichols, you’ll think it queer—but I know all 
about you—and will you come to Bellevue with 
me—and just tell pop he did well? He’s very 
sick, and he worries about losing that job—he 
thinks so much of Mr. Van Tassel—and that was 
his last job—poor pop—he’s so little—and he 
tried so hard—and he always seemed to lose his 


301 



Van Tassel and Big Bill 

jobs. If you say any little fib—it will help him, 
so much!” She started to lift her arms in en¬ 
treaty, then, with some instinct of pride, stood 
straight and still. 

Andy was recalling his plea to the head of the 
shipping department, and the “business is busi¬ 
ness” rebuff he had received. He had felt very 
sorry for the little old man. Now he felt sorrier 
still, as he realized for the second time in a day 
what it means at home, to lose your job. 

“Yes, I will,” he answered impulsively, “I’ll 
go with you—wait for you downstairs.” 

When she joined him at the door he was shak¬ 
ing his head and muttering something about “wo¬ 
men, polling places and hospitals—can you beat 
it!” He came to with a start, then swished her 
out of the toy street and around the corner to 
one of the taxis that stand in front of Jefferson 
Market. “Let’s go!” he exclaimed desperately 
as he helped her in. “Bellevue,” he called to 
the driver. 

At Eleventh Street he started to break the 
rather embarrassed silence that had fallen be¬ 
tween them when, looking out of the window, he 
smiled, leaned forward and started to call, then 
sank back with a baffled expression as the taxi 
rushed on. 

“Friend of yours?” queried Kitty, who had 


302 


“Heads Up ! ,y 

also seen the wide stare of amazement on the 
face of the little woman crossing at the corner. 

“Yes—my wife,” sighed Andy. 

“Oh!” His companion seemed more amused 
than abashed. 

When they crossed Broadway at Twenty-third 
Street, Andy looked out again, rather timidly. 
Kitty looked out too. As luck would have it, 
a shining limousine containing two definitely Wall 
Street faces stood waiting to cross, a yard away. 
Four eyes peered earnestly out of the limousine, 
and then two grins of pure joy followed the eyes 
as the taxi went on. 

“You have a lot of friends,” suggested Kitty. 

“Yes, too many,” responded Andy savagely. 

They were within two blocks of Bellevue and 
had settled down into an easy little talk about 
“pop.” It seemed to Andy that his troubles must 
be over. He began to wonder when his charge 
would register—after all, he remembered, that 
was the object of his visit. Then his luck ran 
out altogether. 

Sp-l-it! Crack! Thump! The taxi stopped 
with a crash, its two passengers thrown violently 
forward. 

“Ugh—accident,” muttered Andy. He looked 
around. “Not hurt?” 

“No,” said Kitty, “but I guess we’ll walk now.” 


303 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

Andy helped her out. The taxi was hopelessly 
entangled with the fender of a high-seated black 
touring car, and badly crumpled from its attack 
on the larger vehicle. The drivers were out, 
looking silently at the wreck and then at each 
other, as they stood appraising the extent of the 
disaster. A large, fleshy man, with a crooked 
white scar running down the middle of his red 
forehead, was approaching from the big car. As 
he came up he took a crumpled cigar out of his 
mouth and threw it to the pavement. 

“Well, young fresh guy, ’at’s a nice mess yer 
kicked up,” he said as he stood belligerently be¬ 
fore Andy. 

“Sorry,” said Andy. “Didn’t see it happen.” 

“Yer didn’t see it happen?” Andy, looking 
closer, sensed a combination of whiskey and ugli¬ 
ness that looked like trouble. “Didn’t see it 
happen!” repeated the big man, scornfully and 
more loudly. “See here,” he said, coming closer, 
“don’t gimme none o’ yer lip—y’understand? 
None o’ yer lip, or I’ll—” 

Andy felt a tug at his sleeve—from behind. 
“Be careful, Mr. Nichols,” Kitty was whispering. 
“It’s McCabe—I know him from the outings. 
He’s a big alderman—he can do anything.” 

Andy made a backward motion with his arm as 
a signal to the girl to keep away. He stayed 


304 


“Heads Up! ” 

where he was. “I tell you, sir, I’m sorry it 
happened,” he said evenly. “Now will you 
please—” The sentence was not finished. Mc¬ 
Cabe suddenly swung with all his might, straight 
at Andy’s head. Andy ducked as he raised an 
arm in defense. Then to his dismay, he felt 
Kitty clutching his other arm again, tugging to 
pull him out of the quarrel. He tried to free 
himself without hurting her. He started to 
speak, turning just a little. With a grunt of 
rage, McCabe landed square on his check with 
the other fist. Rocking from the blow, strug¬ 
gling, Andy side-stepped, freed himself with a 
wrench, then went after the big man as though 
he had been shot out of a gun. Biff! Biff! 
They were both straight jabs to the jaw, landing 
cleanly and squarely, with the speed of piston 
rods. McCabe floundered about the knees, wav¬ 
ing his arms. Then suddenly he collapsed, in a 
quivering heap. Andy stood waiting quietly, a 
look of disgust spreading over his face. 

“Hey, what’s the matter, what’s the matter?” 
A bird-like form in a brown derby hopped into 
the jumble, cocking his head to one side as he 
looked up at Andy. They stared at each other, 
blankly at first, then with gradual understanding. 

“Oh, it’s you!” they both gasped at once. 

“Yes,” said Andy. 


305 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

“Yeah—me,” said the Honorable Dennis Di- 
neen. A feminine voice broke in, as they still 
stared. 

“Oh, Dinny, you’re here—Dinny, it’s all that 
big McCabe’s fault—it’s—” Kitty was stum¬ 
bling over her words in her haste. 

“Yeah?” queried Dinny blankly, as he glanced 
back at Andy. That knight of the taxi began to 
feel vaguely uncomfortable. 

“Oh—” Kitty, with sudden comprehension, 
voiced her reproach with a little gulp of anger, 
then led the Honorable Dennis Dineen to one 
side, where she poured a revealing story into 
the aldermanic ear that broke all records for 
speed in whispering. She was patting his cheek 
at the end, and her eyes were very near his, when 
Andy looked over. It was Dinny who broke 
away first, with a queer look in his own eyes. 

“Mr. Nichols—” he began. 

But then McCabe, up again, groggy and be¬ 
wildered, broke in with a complaining rumble as 
he stood glowering about. 

“Ah, you—you big bum,” chirped Dinny. And 
suddenly, jumping up at the big man, he slapped 
him smartly on each cheek, as though he were 
pecking at him. “Go on home, McCabe. I 
know you!” 


306 



“Yes, and I’ll knock you down again if you don’t behave!” 


































































































































































































“Heads Up!” 

The big man blinked and stammered. “Dinny 
—Dinny Dineen—what—” 

“Yes, and I’ll knock you down again if you 
don’t behave!” Andy and the drivers were 
laughing. But Kitty was standing next to Andy 
offering up her handkerchief. “Oh,” she said, 
“ah, he cut you.” The blood was trickling from 
a split in the skin over Andy’s cheek bone. 

“Oh, yes, so he did,” said Andy, with a wipe of 
his hand. 

When all the details that attend an auto colli¬ 
sion and a fist fight had been straightened out, 
Dinny hurried Andy and Kitty away with him. 
“Come on, quick,” he said, “before the cops 
come snortin’ around. Lucky I was on my way 
to the hospital myself. You two might’ve ended 
up anywhere!” 

In the big white ward a little old man in bed 
turned his head slowly as they tiptoed in after the 
nurse and down the long aisle of the sick. “Ah 
—Kitty,” he said faintly, as they came near. 
“And Dinny.” Andy was standing a little behind 
them. He came forward a step as the old man 
peered around. “And—” 

Kitty took Andy’s hand. “It’s Mr. Nichols, 
pop,” she said gently. 

“Oh—yes—yes.” The wizened face under 


307 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

the white hair looked troubled. Andy felt a 
slight pressure from Kitty’s hand. 

“How are you, Mr. Doheny?” he said. “Glad 
to see you again. I’m sorry you’re laid up.” 

“Yes—laid up—” the form under the bed¬ 
clothes was trying to sit up, the face working 
under the effort. The nurse looked over warn- 
ingly. 

“There, don’t sit up.” Andy put his hand on 
old Doheny’s shoulder. Then his words sud¬ 
denly ran away from him. “Er—Mr. Doheny— 
you know that job, at the store—you know you 
did it—very well. It was just lack of business— 
the lay-off, you know—and—I’ve come to tell 
you—we want you back! Business is better, and 
just as soon as you’re well—we like to keep our 
good men—” Andy suddenly stopped. Dinny 
and Kitty were looking at him in a way that 
unnerved him for further words. Old Doheny 
was craning his neck, staring up from the bed, 
trying to be sure he heard aright. As he read 
Andy’s reassuring smile, his head sank back on 
the pillow and gradually a look of contentment 
spread over his face. He looked up toward 
Kitty. “I knew I could—make good. Mr. Van 
Tassel—said so too.” He was smiling, a child¬ 
like peace in his eyes. 

As the nurse leaned quickly over, feeling the 

308 


“Heads Up!” 

old man’s pulse, Andy caught the signal and left 
them all, his face beaming as he retreated, in 
that way that made people like him on sight. 
The old man’s look followed him out of the 
ward. Andy waved his hand as he went through 
the door. 

In the little flat in Eleventh Street, the heir 
apparent to the nothing that constituted the 
Nichols fortune had been tucked away for the 
night, and the table had been set for two, when 
the head of the house of Nichols came fumbling 
at the door with his key and then strode in with 
his usual whistle and “hello!” It was Nance’s 
startled face that reminded him of a slight but 
conspicuous cut on his cheek. It was Nance who 
later reminded him of some other things, as she 
heard the story of the day. He had to stand 
a bit of chaffing, and a little crying with the 
laughing, as he told her his tale of two jobs. He 
had a last good word for old Sharpies. “Sort 
of a civic ‘heads up!’ the old screw sounded off,” 
he said, “and, believe me, my head’s up!” It 
was not till then that he began to wonder, with 
some dismay, how on earth he was to take care 
of old Doheny. But his wife, who was more 
practical, inquired in an offhand way, “Has your 
new friend registered yet?” 

“Good Lord,” gasped Andy, “I don’t know. 


309 


Van Tassel and Big Bill 

I’d better—find out!” And he flew out of the 
house. 

At the door of the Greenwich Avenue school 
he rushed into the arms of Jimmy Van Tassel, 
just leaving in the course of his usual round 
among the polling places. “Hello, Jimmy!” he 
grinned. 

“Well, there you are!” exclaimed Jimmy, 
laughing. “Giving us a hand in politics, eh? 
Big Bill just told me about the errand he sent you 
on. He’s gone around the corner to look you up 
—you—and Kitty Doheny!” Jimmy was enjoy¬ 
ing himself. “And the shrapnel on your cheek? 
“Andy, Andy—” he shook his head sadly— 
“where have you been?” 

Andy began to puff as though he would shortly 
explode. “Where have I been!” he echoed, and, 
“You call this politics!” 

“Yes, almost,” said Jimmy. 

“It’s more like—” Andy paused. Then he 
waxed suddenly indignant again. “Say, look 
here—has that Kitty Doheny registered?” 

“Not yet, old son—” 

There was a step on the sidewalk as a bird¬ 
like person in a brown derby disengaged himself 
from a light-haired little thing beside him. 

“Oh, there’s Mr. Nichols now!” exclaimed 
Kitty Doheny. 


310 


“Heads Up! ,f 

“Yeah,” said. Dinny, turning toward Andy. 
“She’s come to register,” he said, pushing her 
forward. 

But Kitty waited and took Andy’s hand in 
both her own, before Dinny and the alderman and 
all, as she whispered up into his ear. “Pop’s 
better,” she said, “and the nurse says he’ll get 
well—and it’s you who did it—and—” she stood 
on tiptoe as Andy bent down—“we’re going to 
get him back to the little house, where he won’t 
need a job any more, because—I’m getting mar¬ 
ried with Dinny, next week, and pop’s going to 
live there with us!” 

Then she seemed to choke a little, and she sud¬ 
denly left them and ran off to the table where 
the big books lay. Andy stood looking after her. 
Then he turned his head quickly and just went 
out of the door and away. When Dinny, who 
saw his eyes as he passed, had told the whole 
story to Jimmy, he paused. 

“Say, Jimmy,” he blurted out suddenly, “he’s 
a reg’lar feller—that friend o’ yours.” 

“Yes, he is,” said Jimmy quietly. 


THE END 


311 
























































































































































































































